


Slow Motion Rain

by dewfast_dewfurious



Category: Stardew Valley (Video Game)
Genre: Ableism, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Body Image, Canon Disabled Character, Car Accidents, Coming Out, Conflict, Depression, Disabled Character, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Suicide attempt, Internalized Homophobia, M/M, Medical Conditions, Medical Jargon, Mutual Pining, Non-Explicit Sex, POV Alternating, Panic Attacks, Pining, The closest you can get to angst without plot while still having the barest hint of a plot, Unhealthy Exercise, internalized ableism, mild homophobia
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-05-04
Updated: 2021-02-27
Packaged: 2021-03-01 21:20:56
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 36
Words: 67,228
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23783788
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dewfast_dewfurious/pseuds/dewfast_dewfurious
Summary: Some days Alex’s life felt more like he was watching a TV show. 'After a tragic car accident, carefree young man’s pro-gridball aspirations are crushed – will he ever walk again?' At the end, he’d get to say 'wow, glad that’ll never happen to me,' turn off the TV, and head to the gym. Was he allowed to file a formal appeal to the forces of fate on the grounds that all this was way too after-school-special to really be happening?Or: Can’t have characters make gentle internal growth, gotta break them all in one go…
Relationships: Alex & Haley (Stardew Valley), Alex & Male Player (Stardew Valley), Alex & Sebastian (Stardew Valley), Alex/Male Player (Stardew Valley), Shane & Male Player (Stardew Valley)
Comments: 217
Kudos: 210





	1. Down By Contact

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Additional chapter tags: car accident – mentioned, medical conditions, medical facilities, medical jargon, war – mentioned.

There was a nurse in his house. He was walking around explaining things to Alex. Things he should be listening to.

It was supposed to be helping him adjust to his life at home or whatever, now that he had been discharged – sorry, _graduated_ , from the rehabilitation center. Alex knew he was spacing out, but didn’t really want to hear what the nurse was saying anyway, so let his mind stay fuzzy. He felt like one of those little gray bugs that scrunch tight when you look under rocks. A rush of embarrassment bubbled up as his grandmother asked a question and the nurse turned to her, providing what must be a detailed explanation. He couldn’t focus on any of it.

He shifted uncomfortably in his chair. It was just one of the really generic wheelchairs provided by the hospital, and was definitely not built for sitting in more than ten minutes at a time. They had ordered him some fancy custom one actually meant to be used by people who need wheelchairs, but there had been a delay. Something about supply chains being unpredictable, because of the war, plus injured vets being prioritized for medical equipment. So, he was stuck with this one for now.

Alex felt sick realizing someone would need to help him into his bedroom before he could go to bed; his right arm would be too weak to push himself in such a bulky wheelchair, and it was also still in a cast. He leaned onto the left arm rest and dropped his forehead onto his more functioning hand. He wasn’t even being dramatic this time, it really was just the fatigue hitting. It seemed to come out of nowhere these days, like a touchy fuse tripping.

His grandma noticed him flagging, seemed to wrap things up quickly – or maybe it was slowly, he couldn’t even tell right now – and helped him into his room. And he was too tired to even be upset about it anymore.

Some days Alex’s life felt more like he was just watching a TV show. _After a tragic car accident, carefree young man’s pro-gridball aspirations are crushed – will he ever walk again?_ At the end, he’d get to say ‘wow, glad that’ll never happen to me,’ turn off the TV, and head to the gym. Was he allowed to file a formal appeal to the forces of fate on the grounds that all this was way too after-school-special to really be happening?

He had struggled to understand what anyone was even saying when he had woken up at the hospital, but picking up words here and there through the meaningless strings of sounds, he was able to grasp that he might not be able to play gridball. Something bad happened to his head. Didn’t that happen to gridball players all the time, though? What was the big deal? And what did these doctors even know anyway? There were always stories on the news about people who were told they would never walk again who ran, like, marathons a year later or whatever.

At least words had come back to him pretty quickly. He had learned he'd had a stroke after the car hit him. He'd also broken his arm and leg. Which complicated things, because the casts were on the same side that had become weak and numb from the stroke, so he’d had to work around them once he was stable enough to start rehabilitation.

They hadn't been sure what he would still be able to do or how bad the bleed was, but in rehab it became clear that even taking a few steps at a time was going to be more of a long-haul project. Staff would tell him, _the first few weeks of rehabilitation are really critical, a lot can improve in that time; you might still get back a lot of function, you were young and healthy before the accident_ … That hope had been a mindless comfort at the time, but the weeks had passed. Any headway these days was coming increasingly, excruciatingly, slowly. In the last week of the program, he had made virtually no progress. Yet he noticed the rehab staff switching from the “you’re going to be able to get a lot better!” attitude to “wow, you’re doing great!”

It just made him angry hearing that kind of thing now. Why not just be honest with him from the beginning and tell him he’d be messed up the rest of his life?

He could stand now, even if he did need to be leaning on something, and he could more or less do the basic stuff to take care of himself, even if his limbs were still uncoordinated and sluggish. But he couldn’t let that kind of thing go to his head, no matter how hard he worked to get there. Otherwise, he wouldn’t keep making the improvements he wanted to see.

Alex looked around his room, the first time he’d been back since before the accident. _I’ll have to move that rug_.

“It’s good to have you home, Alex,” his grandmother said.

“Yeah, it’s good to be back,” he replied, pulling all the effort he had left into smiling for her as they said goodnight.

He dressed himself for bed, making each movement in the sequence deliberately, just like he’d practiced in rehab. He was getting faster, and it had been a while since he’d forgotten a step or been completely unable to get his body to cooperate halfway through.

 _Setting the bar real low these days_ , he thought, interrupting the small bloom of pride that had provoked.

He clumsily dumped himself into bed – the day had been way too long to attempt the proper transferring technique he was supposed to be practicing – and hoped sleep would afford him any decent amount of energy tomorrow.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello, thanks for reading!
> 
> I'm posting the first three chapters, then tentatively twice a week going forward (I hopefully have enough finished chapters as a buffer just in case)? If anyone is interested in beta-reading, let me know - I'd be happy to trade! :)
> 
> Read the tags and stay safe!


	2. Regroup

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Additional chapter tags: Ageism I guess?

Haley was already over at the house by the time Alex woke up. She had been at the discharge meeting with his grandparents the day before as the Designated Driver and to help with packing up all his stuff, but it was unexpectedly satisfying to see her face in the context it belonged in.

“Hey,” he nodded, twisting to face her momentarily as he entered the room backwards, having found that using his leg to push the hospital chair along was a decent method of getting from A to B for now.

“That’s one way to do it.” Haley cocked an eyebrow and turned back to the _Ferngill Couture_ magazine she was reading. “How are you this morning?”

“Fine.” It came out more strained than he’d intended. It was more or less accurate. It was too early to think too hard about it anyway.

“Sure,” she said with another skeptical glance his way. “George and Evelyn are at Pierre’s, by the way,” she explained.

He grunted in response and grabbed a bowl of cereal. At least everything in the house was already set up for navigating in a wheelchair: frequently used supplies stored in lower cabinets, doors wide enough to get through, grab-bars installed in the bathroom. The farmer had even had a ramp installed on the farmhouse ages ago. After Evelyn had invited him to dinner soon after he moved in, he had commissioned Robin to build the ramp so he could return the favor in kind and have all the Mullners over for some wholesome, farm-fresh, dish o’ the sea. (Ty had also at this time insisted that Clint and Robin help him make a ramp between the town and the mountains " _because that’s crazy that there isn’t one when George has been using his wheelchair in this town for thirty years.’"_ Alex hadn’t thought of it that way – his Grandpa mainly seemed interested in staying inside watching TV – but had to admit, he had seen him in the spa on occasion since the ramp went in).

Alex supposed he should be grateful that reconfiguring everything in the house wasn’t another thing they all had to adjust to.

He poured himself a second bowl of cereal and flipped open a folder of pamphlets the home care nurse must have left. He opened one: _Life After Stroke_. He looked down at the page and his emotion circuits immediately got so overloaded that he skipped right over the _disbelief-frustration-rage_ and just burst out laughing. He couldn’t stop - he was crying and couldn’t breathe anymore, and Haley was giving him one of her _looks_.

“Uhh, seems like you’re doing _great_.” She snatched the pamphlet away from him and glanced through it. It was illustrated with pictures of old people, and suggested he should prioritize keeping his blood pressure down, eating healthy, and exercising more to prevent hardening arteries and avoid having further strokes for the same reasons as the last time.

“Wow, great, we should alert the Motor Vehicle Department you can avoid car accidents by eating healthy.”

He grinned, passing her another pamphlet from the folder.

“Did they literally think about this at all before giving you these?” she added, before looking down at the pamphlet she was just handed. “Ew, Alex!”

He barely caught it, one-armed, as she flung it back at him.

“What, Haley?” He held it up, displaying the smiling faces of an aging man and woman holding hands over the heading _Intimacy After Stroke._ “What’s wrong with _intimacy_?” he smirked.

“Ugh, seriously, though, they shouldn’t have left all this stuff.” She was being sincere now.

“Whatever,” he dismissed, “It’s not like any different pamphlets would have said anything they haven’t told me a thousand times in rehab anyway.”

She didn’t push him, and they both avoided any heavy topics until his grandparents got back.

Once Haley left, Alex wasn’t really sure what to do with himself. He had missed Dusty so bad while he was gone, though, and hanging out with him was what he would normally be doing at this time, so he decided to do his best to maneuver himself outside. He tried wheeling forwards this time, but still had to use his leg to awkwardly keep himself from just veering slowly right. Waiting for the real wheelchair was going to be a giant pain in the ass, wasn’t it?

Alex made it up to opening the front door before the energy started zapping out of him. Well, he wasn’t sure he was ready to face the entirety of Pelican Town anyway.

“Here boy! Dusty! It’s me!” he called, as quietly as he could to not draw attention to himself while still being audible. Dusty immediately lumbered out of his kennel and stood his front legs up on the fence, giant ears poking straight up in the air.

“Dusty! Come here!” he beckoned. Dusty was getting a little arthritic, but Alex had seen him jump the fence like nothing for a steak. Sure enough, Dusty bounded right over it and galloped, if a little stiffly in his old age, launching himself at Alex with the sheer joy only dogs experience.

“ _Oof_ , okay boy, yep, I’m home,” he grunted, as Dusty attempted to climb into his lap, lick his face, and wag his entire body with his tail all at once. “I missed you,” Alex whispered, trying to hug him. Between the cast weighing down his right arm and Dusty thrashing around in glee, he wasn’t very successful, but he didn’t care. It was his _boy!_

But, too soon, his Grandpa griped about him letting the dog out, and his Grandma had to shepherd Dusty back in his pen. Alex knew Dusty was a big galoot who made things difficult for George getting around – Dusty had no idea how large he was and had zero self-control once he got excited, clearly.

He tried not to feel disappointment as he went back to his room. Might as well to do his PT and OT exercises. It was only two days until his three-times-a-week outpatient appointments started in Grampleton, but he wanted to be able to show he’d made some progress by himself.

His Grandma followed him, standing in the doorway.

“I didn’t move anything in your room… I wasn’t sure what you would still… But, if you want any help moving things, I can-”

“It’s fine, you don’t need to do anything,” Alex cut in. He was more than a little mortified to have it acknowledged that every corner of his room was filled with reminders of what he couldn’t do right now… or probably ever. But there was no point in trying to cover that up by hiding all his old stuff away. It was obvious either way, isn’t it?

He said he needed to sleep and she left, but after running through the stretches, all he did was lie in bed, wide awake, until night fell.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's a real pamphlet.


	3. Weak Side

Ty found out from Haley by chance, running into her as he was heading out late morning to forage in the woods.

“What? He’s back? Why did no one tell me?”

“Oh, I assumed he told you already? Or that I had mentioned it? Well, anyway, he got back yesterday. He seems like he still gets tired kinda easily, so you’ll probably still catch him at the house.”

“Thank you, Haley!”

The farmer switched directions and hiked towards town. If he had known, he would have been prepared with a welcome-home gift. Ty wasn’t about to waste half the daylight hours left to make the trip back to the farm, so whatever was in his backpack would have to do. He found several eggs he hadn’t had a chance to turn into mayo yet. He and Alex had often lamented how inadequate the hospital breakfasts were without farm-fresh Pelican Town eggs, so he guessed it was a decent enough offering.

It was going to be really good to see Alex back in his favorite place. Ty had been a little worried about how Alex was taking everything. Before the accident, he and Alex had gotten to a point where he barely reverted to that cocky bravado he would default to when he was unsure of himself.

It had definitely started up again in the hospital. _You watch, I’m gonna be mountain biking next week, just try and stop me,_ he would joke with the nurses. It made Ty ache to see; he knew it must be killing Alex – he’d lost everything he cared about in a single day – he just wished Alex would talk about it. Though as far as coping skills went, Ty supposed bragging was one of the healthier ones among Pelican Town’s residents.

Maybe just being back in Pelican Town, at the beginning of his favorite season, no more being surrounded by medical staff all the time, would help Alex start to get back to his old self.

Ty reached the Mullners’ house and knocked on the door. Evelyn answered with a bright smile and a hug.

“Hello, Granny!”

“Well, if it isn’t our favorite farmer,” Evelyn gushed, “Come in, I have cookies coming out of the oven in five minutes.”

The house was filled with the familiar smell of her coconut cookies. George was in the living room watching his programs, and he and Ty nodded at each other in friendly acknowledgement.

“I would expect no less, Granny,” he smiled. “Is Alex around today? I heard he’s back.”

Before she could answer, he heard movement from down the hallway. Alex slowly emerged, clearly struggling in the unwieldy wheelchair he was sitting in. He was smiling. Ty tried to inconspicuously gauge Alex’s state of mind, but what he might be thinking under the friendly expression was inscrutable.

“Hey! No one ever told me you were back! I would have come down yesterday if I’d known,” Ty ventured.

“Oh, I guess I thought Haley told you.” He looked apologetic. “There were so many things happening and they kind of told me at the last minute when I was leaving… It must have slipped my mind.”

“No worries, just glad to see you’re finally back. So, I see they didn’t end up finding you a chair in time?”

Alex rolled his eyes. “No.”

Ty remembered the box in his hands. “Oh – I brought some eggs from the farm. Those blue hens just started laying, so you get to be my first townie to taste-test them.”

“Townie? Coming from the guy with the worst Northern accent I’ve ever heard,” Alex smiled. But this time Ty could see through it enough to know he was putting on a front. He could tell Alex was exhausted.

“I can, uh, come back another time if you want.”

Alex was visibly relieved.

“Yeah, sorry, man. I wanna hang out, I just made the mistake of trying to do my exercises in the morning. Won’t be doing that again.”

“Nah, don’t be sorry.” He turned to Evelyn. “You call for me if he doesn’t actually rest, okay, Granny?” he teased.

Ty left and decided to make the hike up to the mines; might as well now that he was up on the northeast side of town. It would be a waste of time to go all the way back down to the forest now.

He contemplated what his strategy should be. He had never really had to push to get Alex to open up. He might come off as an insensitive jock, but all it really took to get him to open up was gentle validation and giving him the space to talk.

When Ty first moved to the Valley, he had told himself _no more infatuation with emotionally unavailable rude men with tragic pasts buried under_ a _tough-guy act._ Turbulent relationships had become a bit of a bad habit, a diversion from the crushing tedium of life as a JojaCorp nine-to-fiver.

Naturally, then, he immediately crushed hard. On Shane. On Sebastian. On Alex… He had done his best to squash these feelings – he had a farm to run, and he wasn’t going to let anything interfere with building a real life out here. He was convinced a day or two’s lost work was going to irreversibly put him under, and he couldn’t take another setback like that right now. (He was now able to reflect that maybe that had been a little excessive, but it had gotten him to his current state of stability in under a year).

He had been pretty successful in blocking out infatuation. Ty had actually been able to build some really great friendships that he knew he wouldn’t have otherwise.

Except.

No matter how hard he tried, he had never been able to completely scrub his feelings for Alex for more than a season or two at a time over the past four years. Just when he’d thought he’d made it to the Firmly Platonic stage again, he’d round a corner and see that cocksure face and feel the familiar stutter in his stomach.

Maybe there was still a masochistic side of him leftover from his Joja days, because, here he was, repeatedly falling for someone so _conspicuously heterosexual_. Like Ty was still in high school or something. Or a caged lab rat giving itself electric shocks. And the whole washboard abs thing wasn’t even his _type_ , so what the fuck.

Something about the earnestness and vulnerability and relentless joy for small-town life was more magnetic than it should be.

Didn’t they always say they best way to hold your ground against an oncoming wave was to dive straight down into it?

It was an excuse Ty was willing to keep reaching for.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm planning on posting the next chapter on Thursday, but I don't have great impulse control, so we'll see if I stick to that.
> 
> Thanks again for reading!


	4. Pocket Collapse

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Additional chapter tags: interpersonal conflict, ableism, panic attack, derealization/depersonalization, mild disordered exercise cw.

Alex looked out the window of the transport van as he made the trip back to Pelican Town from his last OT session in Grampleton (not for the first time wishing that if he had to make a forty-five-minute trip, there could at least be an ocean view along the drive). Over the last few weeks, a lot of things had been getting easier now that he was home. His casts were off. He had finally gotten a proper wheelchair, which was a _major_ upgrade (one-arm drive option, crutch holder, no handles to tempt anyone to try and push him, matte black? He was still not over hyping it).

He had to keep going to PT for a while, to catch up the portions of his right arm and leg he wasn’t able to rehab with the casts on, but once he built up strength in his wrist, he’d be trying out an orthotic that might make it so he could walk with crutches. He was getting into more of a routine around the house, and he and his grandparents had seemed to have reached a mutual understanding of how things operated between them now.

He knew he should be feeling glad about all that. But at the same time, a lot of stuff seemed even harder than when he first got back.

Being back made everything feel… permanent. Not that he had been in _complete_ denial about his stroke, it was just… Things were clearly supposed to be going back to normal. It was just different to tell himself that this was what the new normal was going to be and actually be living that new normal. Every day. And there was way more here to remind him of what he used to be able to do than the bare room at the rehab center. (Okay, he _did_ tell himself that he didn’t give a crap about all the weights and gridball equipment in his room. But his walls were _literally plastered with gridballs and bodybuilders._ )

Maybe he’d think about rearranging some stuff in his room.

When he got home, Grandma was making lunch and Grandpa was dozing in front of the TV.

“Hey, Grams.” He wrapped his arm around her waist as he came up beside her. “Anything I can help with?”

“What a helpful grandson I have,” she smiled, putting her arm around him. “How about you peel these potatoes for me?”

Alex stacked a cutting board, bowl of potatoes, and a potato peeler onto his lap and swiveled around, pulling up to the kitchen table. He got to work peeling. He and Ty had driven a few nails through an old cutting board that he could spear things on to keep them still, so he could still help his Grandma in the kitchen. He didn’t want to be _completely_ useless.

“Today was your last day of therapy, isn’t that right?” his Grandma asked.

“Just occupational therapy. I still have to do physical therapy.”

“Oh, that’s right. Well, I’m proud of you for finishing it.”

Alex bristled at that and tried to push down his irritation.

“Nothing to be proud of,” he grumbled. “I still can’t do, like, most normal things, Grandma.”

“You just be grateful for what you _can_ do,” his Grandpa called from the living room, “And be grateful you’re still young. When you’re old it’s a lot harder to adjust to new things.”

“That doesn’t mean it’s easy, Grandpa!”

“Well it definitely wasn’t easy to be put in a wheelchair at forty!”

“Oh, George,” Grandma interjected, giving him a scolding look.

Alex shut his mouth before he said anything else, fuming as he peeled his potatoes. Everyone fell back into what they were doing in stiff silence.

Alex didn’t want to disrespect his Grandpa, but that was the last thing he wanted to hear right now. _Just be grateful for what you can do._ It was the constant retort his own brain supplied when he was feeling down about not being able to play gridball or do anything else anymore.

He _was_ ungrateful. He was constantly wasting his time thinking about what he didn’t have and being all sad and pathetic about it. And on top of that, he was a jerk to mope about it in front of his Grandpa as if being in a wheelchair meant your life was over.

But if it had been as hard to adjust as he kept saying, Grandpa could at least be a little more understanding, Alex thought resentfully.

As soon as he’d skinned the last potato, he put the bowl on the counter, maybe a little harder than he needed to, and retreated silently back to his room.

Alex did what he’d been doing lately when his frustrations threatened to get the better of him: throwing himself into his PT exercises, even though he just came back from OT. (He had already been scolded by the physical therapist not to go overboard so he wouldn’t injure himself, but wasn’t a little pain just a sign of progress?)

His whole body vibrated with an agitated energy he couldn’t get out. He needed to _move_ ; the physical therapy wasn’t making a dent in the burning ache under his skin.

If he could just lift weights... His mind would fade into the background until the only thoughts left were the rising tally of reps and perfecting his technique, muscle by muscle. But his right arm was still not the best at gripping – he probably couldn’t even hold the lightest weights in his room.

Alex wondered what he actually _could_ do. He sat on the bed and started a second round of exercises.

Definitely wouldn’t be able to do push-ups. Sit-ups maybe. But getting up off the floor was still a work in progress, and he didn’t want to end up getting stuck. Throwing around a ball had always been a failsafe stress release, and that, too, was a no-go. He hadn’t yet gotten the hang of throwing a ball left-handed, or re-learned to throw right-handed – if that was even going to be possible anymore.

Alex started to get that panicked, cornered feeling he got when he started thinking about doing things he used to do.

He’d lost control over his body, his emotions, his life. He felt weak. Being weak meant you couldn’t protect yourself or the people around you from getting hurt. If he couldn’t protect his friends and family, what was he even doing? Yoba, he was pretty worthless, wasn’t he?

The panic tightened in his chest and he stopped in the middle of a stretch, finding himself out of breath. Alex tried to breathe in, and he couldn’t get enough air in. He could feel himself blurring at the edges. He was looking at hands in front of him that weren’t his hands, and – he was so completely _worthless_ now _._ He stared at the hands – _worthless_ – and gasped out some breaths. _Worthless, worthless._

He noticed Ty coming into his field of vision – he hadn’t heard anyone come in? – and saw him leaning over, mouthing something Alex couldn’t read. Ty touched the hands in front of Alex and Alex realized they were his own hands. He felt a strong, warm hand on his back.

Then he heard Ty– “Alex? Hey, it’s okay. Just take in a breath.”

That was silly. He knew how to _breathe_ at least. He wasn’t that–

_Worthless._

_Worthless._

_Worthless worthlessworthless–_ he felt a sharp intake of cool air into his lungs and realized he probably hadn’t been breathing after all.

“All right, good, now breathe out.”

Alex listened this time, only when he let out his breath, it was ragged and he felt that his hands and face were wet.

“Just keep breathing, in and out,” Ty continued.

Alex did. The painful tightness in his chest eased slightly. Ty was sitting next to him, and his hand was still on Alex’s back, moving in a slow circle, weighing him down, to the earth. Alex clung to that sensation and used it to claw his way back into his own body and mind.

He didn’t like to make a habit of cursing, but, _what the fuck_.

Was he crying? He quickly scrubbed his eyes with a hand, as if that could save face after everything Ty had just seen.

“You good?” Ty took his hand off Alex’s back. Alex took stock of his surroundings. He was on the bed. Ty was next to him. The light was low. The door was closed – thank goodness.

“I- I don’t even know what that was. How did you get here?”

“Your grandparents said you were in here and then I didn’t hear anything when I knocked, so I came in to make sure you were okay. Sorry for just coming in like that.”

Good, so he hadn’t been crying and gasping for air so loudly the whole house could hear.

“No, it’s cool. Thanks, I guess. I don’t know what happened… I just couldn’t breathe suddenly.”

“That doesn’t sound good– is that something that can happen?” Ty had been keeping up his usual level, composed self, but now his brows were knitting together into a frown. “Should you call your doctor or something?”

Alex shook his head. “I don’t think it was like that. I was trying to do stretches when it started, but I think it was all in my head? Like, I had a fight with my Grandpa and then I felt bad about it… and then I was just feeling sorry for myself and started stressing out about– stuff. And then I started feeling like I couldn’t breathe, and nothing was real… Is that a thing?”

“I think that is a thing… Like, something people can get with anxiety?”

“Oh.” Was that what it was? He guessed he had been wound a little tight these days.

“You wanna talk about it?” Ty asked, in the sincere way he did that made it feel like he genuinely wanted to know if you wanted to talk, not just out of politeness.

“Not really.” What if saying what he had been thinking about made it happen again? He felt his chest constrict just thinking about having to go through that again. “Like I said, just feeling sorry for myself was all. I need to get out of this house,” Alex sighed, rubbing his face in his hands.

“Want to go sit outside? I can run into the Saloon and get some Joja Cola.”

Alex breathed out a laugh, his tension dissipating. “Well, I think you’re the only one that’s gonna be drinking that Joja crap, but, yeah.” As exhausted as he was, he could really use a change in scenery.

He pushed any residual emotions down with an effort reminiscent of forcing his middle school gym locker closed as they made the short trip to the Saloon. He was glad they didn’t see his Grandpa on his way out.


	5. Broken Play

Ty liked his routine on the farm. He liked getting up as the sun rose and making his bed before cooking himself a full breakfast – always from scratch, now that he had Robin build him a mill, with the ingredients he’d cultivated from his own land.

He didn’t need to water his crops anymore, since he’d quickly invested in an extensive sprinkler system, but he would then check over his plants, harvesting any that were ready, and make sure his fields and scarecrows were in good condition. He then moved on to tending to his animals, milking the cows and goats, gathering eggs from the coop, and checking if either of the sheep needed shearing.

His next undertaking would be processing all his raw materials; he’d fill the mayonnaise machines, check on progress in each keg, prepare fruits and vegetables for canning, and start another batch of cheese, depending on the quality of the milk he’d been given.

Once he was done with these tasks, his day was a little more open. Maybe he’d give the whole farm a once-over to make sure everything was cleared and in good condition. Maybe he’d draw up some plans for the next upgrade he was going to make (maybe it was time to start an orchard?), or smelt some ore, or tinker around on his work bench.

One thing Ty loved about farm life was the constant room for improvement, yet with everything he’d already accomplished in plain view, every day.

He hadn’t really thought through how physically demanding running a farm would be when he first moved out to Stardew Valley. To be perfectly honest, he probably wouldn’t even have given it a shot if he’d known. Ty definitely wasn’t above a little automation – seriously, the sprinklers were life-changing – but he liked that he could get into a rhythm with the labor and sink into his thoughts.

Today, he was thinking about Alex.

It had been a few days since Alex had had that… anxiety episode, or whatever it was. He remembered Shane telling him about having anxiety attacks. He hadn’t really gone into details, but maybe it was the same thing. It was scary. Ty had felt helpless, like there was nothing he could do for Alex.

That was getting to be a familiar feeling. Before the accident, Alex had always been outside when he wasn’t at the gym, and now Ty almost never saw him around unless he was coming back from an appointment out of town. It seemed like Alex was only ever in his room, or in the kitchen if he was in a better mood.

Ty had been concerned when Alex had started up his defensive overconfidence again in the hospital, but it seemed like things were worse than that now. The swagger was gone, but so was… everything else. The other day he’d visited after dinnertime, and Evelyn said Alex had been in bed all day. _You’re friends with Alex. Could you talk with him – see how he’s doing? Sometimes he worries me sick._

He and Alex had talked, but just surface-level stuff.

This was definitely a problem that required more than day’s farm chores to think through, but it seemed like things weren’t going to get better by themselves. Alex was someone who got pretty focused on a track once he got started.

It was time for Ty to intervene. He’d be gentle and all, but Operation Get Alex Out of the House, was officially underway.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading! :) Next update coming up Saturday.


	6. Neutral Zone

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Additional Chapter Tags: car accident (implied/referenced), medical debt, medical industrial complex, panic attacks, vague suicidal ideation (only briefly, and only implied).
> 
> A bit of a longer one this time :)

Alex was in his room again, lights off and blinds drawn down, deep in the midst of yet another one of those _episodes_. They had been happening more and more, but his last one was only _yesterday._ That one hadn’t even been set off by anything. His lungs had just suddenly frozen up out of nowhere, and he had been so scared he was going to lose control again that that thought alone had set him off into a breathless, shaking, fit.

Today, there was _maybe_ more of a cause-and-effect he could understand.

Alex had spent the morning going through bills and letters and more bills and more letters with his Grandma. He hadn’t ever been great at reading, but Grandma’s eyesight wasn’t what it used to be, so he read them aloud and Grandma explained the things he didn’t get. After spending a few minutes with the most recent pile of mail, the stacks of zeros had stopped meaning anything.

He and his grandparents had only really been able to afford basic JojaCares insurance plans, but it was better than nothing. Grandma kept signing thanks to Yoba that the driver had been insured and would pay off a hefty chunk of the bills. It took off some zeros; yet as much as the original sum dwarfed the remaining balance, the amount they needed to pay seemed equally large in comparison to their bank account.

Summer used to be the time they’d have a little extra income with his gig at the ice cream stand. But, of course, there were a myriad of reasons that wasn’t possible: being outside in the sun for that long would be too tiring, and you had to stand to get to the ice cream tubs so he’d be standing up and sitting down a lot, and he’d have to figure out scooping with his left hand, and he probably couldn’t hold onto the cone tight enough to get the ice cream in there or hold it in a way that wouldn’t crush it… Last year he would never have thought scooping ice cream part time was a physical job.

But that was the past. It was best stick to the here and now. Although, that wasn’t necessarily less depressing in this case, since they were still waiting for his Ferngill Disability Pension to be approved. They were making him wait until all his PT was done, which didn’t even make _sense_ , because he could have PT for, like, the next year or more. _None of this makes sense_ , he thought, his head starting to pound.

He wouldn’t let himself think the hazy idea that had oozed up from the pit of his stomach. _Grandma and Grandpa would_ _be better off if-_ he wasn’t allowed to think it. He had once in the hospital, and he had told himself it was the last time. But it was hard in times like this when he was faced with such hard proof of what a burden he was and that _all this would be so much easier if I had just-_ It was too pathetic though, even for him. Alex faced his responsibilities. It was his bed, so he was going to lie in it. He was better than his dad.

So, he had sucked it up and kept reading aloud to his grandmother while she copied down sums and made calculations on the wide hand-held calculator with the huge numbers he used to mess around with as a kid.

When they’d finished up for the time being, he had gone back to his room, thinking he was at least more or less stable for the moment despite the small falter in keeping his thoughts in check. But once he had started thinking about his father, it had gone downhill pretty fast.

Alex had tried to repeat to himself what Ty had said the other day: _breathe in, breathe out._

But it wasn’t quite loud enough to overpower his dad’s voice in his thoughts.

_Worthless._

And then he was going off again, and Ty’s words were drowned out with the panic of all the hardship he was bringing onto his grandparents.

The emotions came in consuming waves. They were too overwhelming. In his old life, he could easily avoid bad feelings entirely. Why did everything have to swing wildly between feeling like the volume was stuck on maximum one minute and muted nothingness the next?

But then he heard scratching at his window. He was able to pull himself together enough to get over to the window and see that it was Dusty. Alex was still gasping for breath, but managed to open the window, and Dusty clamored in, awkwardly clunking onto the floor, all limbs. Alex wasn’t a hundred percent sure if it was real; nothing seemed a hundred percent real right now.

Alex leaned on Dusty, who walked over to the bed with him, as if he knew exactly what to do. His grandparents would definitely disapprove, but he and Dusty lay in bed, the enormous Great Dane head and a weighty paw on his chest. They stayed that way for the next hour, the grounding presence of his dog slowly bringing him back to the real world, his breath slowly evening again.

It was odd, Alex thought, that his father’s words kept coming back to him like this. Before, he had always felt like he had avoided actually believing any of the things his father had called him – he had prided himself in his detachment from the names. It was his father’s pathetic inadequacy and inability to see others doing better than him that made him lash out at Alex and his mom, not a reflection of Alex himself lacking in some way.

But now, wasn’t he a step closer to becoming the man his father was? No job, just a drain on his family and society. And he had snapped at his Grandpa the other day. Maybe his father had been able to see the kind of man he was going to become all along.

Dusty suddenly decided lying next to Alex with his head on his chest wasn’t clingy enough, and stomped around trying to lie his entire giant horse self on Alex. It was as if he could read Alex’s thoughts, knowing he needed to snap out of it. Alex laughed and threw his arms up in defense, trying not to make enough noise to alert his grandparents while avoiding getting completely trampled.

“ _Dude_ ,” he whispered, “ _Get off!_ ”

He froze as he heard a knock on the door, but instantly cracked a smile again when he heard Ty’s voice on the other side.

“Come in!” He called. Ty opened the door, and Alex gestured vigorously at him to come in quickly, holding a finger to his lips. Ty complied, closing the door behind him with an arched eyebrow.

“ _It’s Dusty_ ,” Alex pointed and whispered around the Great Dane lying on top of him. “ _He’s not allowed in the house_.”

“ _What a rebel!_ ” Ty whispered in feigned shock, poorly suppressing a smile.

“Uh, could you actually… help me get him outside?”

“How did he even get in?”

“He was scratching at the window while I was having one of those anxiety things so I let him in. Wasn’t thinking. Clearly.”

Ty pulled a large chunk of wild bait from his bag.

“Here, boy!” Ty said, quietly, but with exaggerated excitement. Dusty lifted his head, curiosity piqued, and Alex took the opportunity to raise himself up on his elbows, shifting Dusty’s weight off of him. Between Ty enticing Dusty with the bug meat, and Alex gently prodding from behind, balancing on one crutch, they led him to the window.

Ty backed out and fell on his backside. Dusty followed, taking the opportunity nab the treat while Ty was down. Alex had to fish another one out of Ty’s backpack (“How do you fit so much crap in here?”) and tossed it through the window. Dusty didn’t intercept it, despite his efforts (though Alex had faith he would have done it easy in his prime), and Ty and Dusty disappeared around the side of the house, out of Alex’s view. Only a few moments later, Ty returned, victory clear on his face.

Ty leaned his elbows on the windowsill, poking his head in. “You know, I wouldn’t risk my reputation with Granny for just anyone.”

Ty was turning on his charming grin to its maximum degree, one eyebrow raised. Alex raised an eyebrow back.

“Finally, I get some recognition around here.”

“Oh- oh no…” Ty feigned dismay, “I was talking about Dusty.”

Ty grinned again as Alex flicked a piece of bait at him, which bounced off his bicep onto the floor.

“All right, help me in.” Ty stuck out his arm, and Alex obliged, grabbing it and helping Ty back through the window.

Alex sat heavily back down onto the bed, laughing, but drained from the compounding effects of the anxiety and the exertions of wrangling an overly affectionate behemoth, and Ty sat backward in the desk chair across from him, also grinning.

“Thanks, bro, for real,” Alex said.

“Don’t mention it,” Ty smiled. He hesitated a moment before continuing. “So… you were having another anxiety attack?”

Alex cringed.

“Yeah.” He thought about leaving it there and letting Ty have to be the one to pull it out of him, but he just wanted to get his thoughts out of his head today. “I was helping Grandma with bills and stuff and then just got stressed about being a burden on my family, and then started thinking about my dad, so that went well.”

“You’re not a burden,” Ty asserted.

“Yes, Ty, I am. I have the bills to prove it. And my pension isn’t coming through for a while and I can’t work, obviously.” He sighed. “I used to just fall back on the idea of going pro and everything would be all figured out, and I could support myself and my grandparents all on my own. And now I’m the one depending on them, when they used to be able to depend on me, you know?”

“Well, you don’t have to think of it that way,” Ty said pensively, “You didn’t only have value in their lives because you had a job and could help them more around the house. People are more than that.”

Ty wasn’t getting it. Maybe someone who was such a powerhouse just couldn’t comprehend what it would be like to contribute precisely nothing to society.

“Okay, well, what if a car hit _you_ and you couldn’t work on your farm anymore, and like, everyone in Pelican Town who you gave stuff to and helped out had to come do it for you and you couldn’t give anything back to them? I know you, bro, you would go crazy not being able to make all those plots and schemes you have for Pelican Town.”

“I’m just saying, that stuff doesn’t have to determine your value as a person.”

“I guess not.” Alex didn’t really understand what Ty was getting at though. How would your worth not be related to providing for your family?

“Well, you wanna catch the game?” Alex said, wanting to change the subject. “Preseason’s starting.”

“Sure, I can set up the TV.”

“Yeah, thanks.”

Ty lugged the tiny portable set from under Alex’s bed. It was a chunky, dense little tube unit that didn’t like to display all three color beams at once, but it got the job done. Alex watched as Ty got to work perching it on the chair and arranging it in their usual setup so they could watch it from the bed.

It wasn’t like him and Ty to butt heads. Sure, they had their differences. And he could admit, there were things that Ty had had to educate him on.

Like the time he had followed some comment or other with “no homo” (in his defense, that had been, like, four years ago).

 _“Look,”_ Ty had said, pausing working his field to turn to Alex, _“I let people say ‘no homo’ in front of me exactly one time,”_ he continued, holding up a finger.

 _“Then what?”_ Alex had half-laughed. Ty had stood up, swinging a hoe onto his shoulder in a way that actually managed to be a little intimidating in a way that shouldn’t have been possible. (Then had explained to him why that was _homo-phobic_ ).

Ty was smart about things like that. Alex couldn’t tell if this was a time he should make an effort to see things Ty’s way.

Ty managed to get full color on the small screen, with the encouragement of a few firm bangs on its side, and Alex decided to put his thoughts aside and just enjoy some good-old-fashioned gridball for once.

They had only missed the first ten minutes. He let himself relax into Tunnelers fan mode, as he and Ty got into place side by side with their backs to the wall. They settled into their routine back-and-forth: Alex explaining the plays, the significance, the background; Ty, his faithful gridball protégé, asking questions, getting excited when he understood or remembered something on his own. Alex must not be too bad a tutor, though, because this time Ty was doing more of the talking than Alex was, he noted, permitting himself the ego boost it gave him.

Ty had really been a solid friend through all this, he reflected. Alex didn’t have too many friends in the Valley, and it could have been easy to lose Ty if he didn’t go out of his way to see Alex, with how many days Alex ended up never leaving the house, or even his bed.

In the hospital and the rehabilitation program, it had gotten lonely some days. Pelican Town was over an hour away, and his grandparents weren’t in a condition to make that length of journey every day, nor could they afford one of the pricey hotels surrounding the medical campus. But Haley or Ty would drive up a few days a week with them, borrowing vehicles from whichever Pelican Town residents could spare them. There were even times Ty had driven up by himself, when Alex’s grandparents weren’t able to make it out. Hearing news of what had been going on in the town in the prior days, not having to watch baseball games alone on the tiny hospital TV… it always left a buzzing warmth that lasted hours after Ty left.

Sometimes Alex had felt embarrassed if he was having a bad day and Haley or his grandparents visited. He had had to quickly get over any ability to be mortified with hospital staff, but they were his family. It was different. He had never wanted them to have to see him struggle to control his body or his emotions, to show any weakness. Maybe it was because he wasn’t family, but somehow things never felt that way with Ty.

When Ty had moved to Pelican Town, it had been surprising to Alex that he had seemed to become close with Ty so quickly. He had never been a guy who needed to be surrounded by friends; he tended to have a few close, important people, and never felt the need for more than that. But it was almost harder _not_ to let Ty in. He always had a way of making you feel like he was genuinely interested in what you had to say. Most people just asked questions to talk and wait for their turn to start talking again. When Ty asked questions, they were the kind other people would never think of. And sometimes the ones Alex felt everyone was probably thinking but would never have the guts to ask.

Ty did confuse him sometimes, though. When it was just the two of them, like today – shenanigans with Dusty, watching gridball on the bed – it felt like they were each other’s best friends. But whenever Alex saw Ty with other people, it seemed like he was just that way with everyone. Alex didn’t open up easily, and it seemed like Ty never met someone who _wasn’t_ a best friend.

Ty’s was the kind of light that illuminated everyone around him; Alex was just glad he got to share in it. Maybe that was pathetic. But it was just the effect Ty had on people.

Alex was next aware of being nudged gently awake. Blinking, he realized he’d dozed off. During a Tunnelers game. Things were definitely very different these days.

“ _Alex, I’m heading out,_ ” Ty said softly.

Alex stretched and nodded. “Did we win?”

“Pff, of course, it’s the Tunnelers isn’t it?”

“Thanks for watching the game with me.”

“You didn’t watch the game, you were sleeping, you dork,” Ty teased amicably.

“Just for, like, the last quarter,” Alex halfheartedly protested.

“Okay, whatever you say,” Ty conceded, but he had a smirk that Alex would pretend to be offended by if his eyelids weren’t so heavy.

“All right, get outta here, I need my beauty sleep.”

Ty helped him pack up and headed back to the farm. As Alex got back into bed, he thought, it was nice to pretend for a few hours that everything was like it used to be.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just some oblivious boys being oblivious about their feelings :)
> 
> Thanks again for reading!


	7. Tackle Box

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Additional chapter tags: ‘queer’ but not really used as a slur, excessive pining.

It was a particularly hot and sticky day, and Ty had spent the last two hours scouring the beach and tide pools for anything profitable and checking all his crab pots. The work should have been more punishing in the heat than it was, but Ty kept replaying moments in his mind from yesterday. It had been almost like old times in a tantalizing way.

He reached his last crab pot and drew it up, pulling the shrimp from inside, and turned it over, checking for any signs of wear or need for repairs.

Ty had been glad Alex had opened up a little. Although Ty wished he could do more to help, it was a start at least.

But there had been something else about yesterday. Had they always sat that close together? Ty thought he would remember getting to sit for multiple hours with their knees slightly touching. At first Ty had thought maybe Alex couldn’t feel it, but he had been on Alex’s left, so, it wasn’t that.

Ty would not let himself read into it. _He is a heterosexual, Tyrone,_ he reminded himself. Maybe for straights it was okay if your legs touched a little as long as you were doing something manly, like watching gridball.

Anyway, Alex was putting the pieces of his life back together right now. He didn’t need anyone creepily yearning after him while he was just trying to make it through the day. _This was not the time_.

Ty finished up with his crab pot and gave his rigs a last visual once-over before heading to Willy’s and offloading the day’s yield. Making his way back toward town, he stretched, popping a few vertebrae.

Alex needed him as a friend right now. And Ty really, really liked being Alex’s friend! Why did his brain keep getting stuck on the idea that it needed all the other stuff too? Maybe, if he did it _right_ this time, he could get rid of this ridiculous crush. He needed someone to kick some sense into him.

Ty checked the time. He figured he’d have luck catching Shane at the Saloon. Getting out of the heat and grabbing a Joja Cola would probably do him some good, too.

When Ty got to the Saloon, Shane was sitting at one of the booths, a few empty Joja Cola cans already on the table. A half-eaten pizza slice sat to the side, the cheese noticeably hardened by its time on the plate. Ty was surprised to see Shane had a notepad and was writing in it.

“Hey,” Ty leaned on the back of the booth opposite Shane, “Mind if I join?”

“Nah, but get me a soda, too while you’re over there,” Shane said, gesturing toward the vending machine on the other side of the wall. Shane knew him too well.

“Sure, I’ll get you some _pop_.”

“It’s a _soda_ , you Northerner.”

Ty returned with the promised beverages and slid into the seat facing Shane, who was back to industriously writing.

“You smell like fish,” Shane complained, not looking up from his notepad.

“I was at the beach all day.”

Ty cracked open the can with a hiss and took a swig.

It was that irresistible disgusting-delectable combo that totally had him hooked. He never really _meant_ to make a habit of it. Once he started, though, he would finish off however many cans happened to be in arm’s reach. Like those gross JojaMart cookies with the colorful frosting and the sprinkles that were most likely made of foam. Yoba, he could really go for one of those right now.

“What’re you working on?”

“Um, well… business plans actually,” Shane said, a little sheepishly. “I’ve been thinking about getting more serious with breeding chickens.”

“Oh, wow, that’s – that’s big! What sort of plans?” Ty tempered his excitement. He’d learned to tread the thin line of acknowledgement with Shane; even feeling like he had expectations could activate his sensitive auto-destruct.

“I don’t have much. Maybe when I have more…” He mumbled. His eyebrows furrowed and he put away the notebook, but coming from Shane, that was practically a flashy elevator pitch.

“Well, I can’t wait.”

Ty smiled to himself, thinking about how much things seemed to be looking up for Shane these days.

“How’ve things been going with you, though?” Shane asked. “Haven’t seen you around much. Been hitting the mines again?”

“No, not really. I’ve been trying to be there for Alex and stuff.”

“Oh, yeah. That’s right. Haven’t seen that kid around really since, uh… he had his accident. How’s he been holding up?”

“Not great. I don’t know.” Ty fiddled with the sugar packets on the table to give his hands something to do. “He usually talks about things with me, but he hasn’t been, really, this whole time. I’m pretty worried about him actually. I don’t know what to do to help.”

“Uh-huh.” Shane kept his eyes on Ty as he took a long drink, finishing his can. “So, you came to talk to me because you don’t know how to help him?”

Yoba. Shane could always see right through him.

“I don’t know, it’s just… I’m his friend. That’s what friends are for, right?”

“Is it?”

“All right, fine. I have feelings for him again.”

Shane let out a long exhale. “I am… not surprised.” He returned to the half-eaten pizza slice, picking it up and taking an inhumanly large bite. Shane continued, talking around his food, “What is it with you and that guy? He looks like the type of guy who helped beat up the queer kids back in high school. You got some kind of a thing for that?”

“What? _No._ I mean, he does look like that. But, he’s the opposite, really. Alex just… can really surprise you with how vulnerable he can actually be. He always tries really, really hard, and he’s thoughtful – like, he thinks about things you wouldn’t expect him to if you didn’t know him. And everything he loves, he loves the shit out of and always goes out of his way to appreciate it, like gridball, obviously, but also his family, the Valley… I don’t know. I just have the worst soft spot for him.” Ty realized he’d been smiling as he’d said all this and quickly tried to pull himself back together.

“Holy shit, Ty. You’re in… way deeper than you’ve been letting on, aren’t you?”

Ty dropped his head into his hands and scrunched handfuls of hair in his fists. “I’m really trying not to be, though. I’ve been feeling like a total shitbag about it recently.”

“Mm? How so?” Shane finished off the crust and wiped his hands down the front of his jacket.

“Shane, there are napkins _right there_ ,” Ty cringed, pulling a napkin out of the dispenser on the table and tossing it at him.

“But my jacket is over _here_ ,” Shane taunted, ignoring the napkin. “I’m saving the environment. Anyway, you were going to tell me about what a shitbag you are?”

Ty rolled his eyes, but continued. “It’s like… I want to be there for him as a friend, and I shouldn’t be thinking about that kind of stuff when he needs a friend’s support, especially when he has so much going on right now. All my brain can do is think about its own damn self.”

“Uh, sure, it’s your _brain_ that’s leading the way here – all right, all right, kidding.” Shane quickly added, as Ty pulled a face at him. Shane considered for a moment. “Well, this one time my therapist was saying that when you try _not_ to feel something, it can just make it worse than if you just let yourself feel it.”

Ty was skeptical. His brain didn’t seem to be pulling any punches in the feeling department.

“It’s either that or cold turkey, kid. Then I’m out of ideas.”

“You’re probably right. I’m probably not going to listen to you though.”

“Oh, yeah, I know.” Shane looked him over. Seeming to decide on something, he leaned forward. “Ty, you try really hard and care a lot about… just about everyone and everything in this town. Sometimes you’re too hard on yourself about it, you know? I guess I’m trying to say you’re probably already being a good friend, you just… overthink things. Try taking it easy now and then, okay?” ~~~~

“Thanks Shane,” Ty smiled, “But _you_ telling _me_ to chill is the funniest fucking thing you could have said.”

Shane sighed. “Yeah, well, if you figure out how, let me know.” He stood. “Another Joja Cola?”

“Nah, I think I’ll head out.” Ty shifted out of the booth as well. “For real, though, thanks.”

Ty squinted as his eyes adjusted from the dimly lit Saloon to the cloudless summer blaze. His immediate thought was to find Alex.

 _Didn’t we_ just _talk about this?_

He’d already dismissed the idea and started up north to the park for some foraging when Alex came walking out of Pierre’s.

“Hey, farmer guy,” Alex called out.

It was definitely new seeing him outside with just his crutches.

“Hey Alex,” Ty nodded.

“Looks like you’ve been working on your tan.”

“More like I’ve been working on my farm.”

Alex cocked an eyebrow in a way that made it very tempting to test Shane’s theory that Ty should just give in to his feelings.

“You’re out here pretty far on crutches,” Ty remarked, genuinely impressed.

“Well, Grams needed butter,” he shrugged, “So I volunteered to make the store run this time. I may regret this tomorrow, but, I’m pretty stoked now, anyway.”

Alex was in a rare good mood.

“Yeah, no kidding. So, did you get to watch the game recap? I still can’t believe Diulio’s sneak.”

“Why, bro? He’s the king of the QB sneak, what do you expect?” Alex grinned. “All right, I gotta keep moving or I’m not gonna make it back,” he said, though he was still beaming. “See you around.”

He clapped a hand on Ty’s shoulder as he left.

The tingling warmth spreading from the contact was like a fucking heat rub, and Ty swore Alex’s hand lingered a second too long. Yoba. _Stop thinking like that, he was probably just off balance for a second._

Ty forced his brain back to functioning enough to resume his foraging mission.

Maybe Shane was on to something about cold turkey being his only way out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This fanfiction brought to you by Joja Cola TM.
> 
> It's not technically still Wednesday, but I can still count this as being updated on time, right? :) Aiming for Saturday for the next update.
> 
> I was going to add something like “I know this is a slow start, but I promise I’m going somewhere with this,” except I don’t know if I can promise I’m going anywhere with this.
> 
> Thank you as always for reading, and I really appreciate the kudos and comments! :)


	8. Fumble

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Additional Chapter Tags: ableism, interpersonal conflict
> 
> If you don’t want to read scenes with fighting/conflict, you can skip chapters 8 and 9 and it won’t really impact reading the rest of it.

Alex sat outside Dusty’s pen, trying to draw comfort from the familiar spot. It was an unbearably beautiful day – perfect for the beach. Not a cloud in the sky, just a few degrees above comfortably warm; he could practically hear the ocean begging him to come out and swim. But there was no way he could get across the sand in his wheelchair. Maybe in his crutches, but then there’d be sand all in his new AFO, and anyone who’s lived in walking distance of a beach knows the plague that is sand irreversibly trapped in velcro. Plus, his balance wasn’t that great yet on even ground, let alone when it was uneven and moving underneath you in unpredictable ways. No, he’d have to really build his strength up before he could think about trying that.

_Of course this all has to happen in the summer_ , he thought moodily. This was the only time of year Alex really felt... solid. Now it was like everything was flowing away from his center again, blurring, despite the season. His days seemed to stretch out forever without his schedule of workouts.

The late summer was also the time of year that made him nostalgic for his quarterback days. The coaches would be starting to send out the strength and conditioning assignments to get them ready for the pre-season once school started up again. There would be mini-practices and clinics, and the coaches would start making their rough lineup picks for the start of the season. He and his teammates would start meeting up at the gym or the field to keep themselves on track and maybe work in an extra sesh or two. There would be anticipation, camaraderie, friendly rivalry; the desire to excel, improve, and surpass his own abilities.

Gridball had been... who he _was_. Somehow, even now, thinking about giving it up still felt like letting down his mom. When he was little, they would talk about how he was gonna go pro someday. He would point out that no one from Pelican Town had ever gone pro before, and his mom would tell him he would be the first. They had that same conversation so many times, it became like a ritual between them. Even after she died, whenever Alex felt unsure about his future or how he was going to take care of his grandparents in their old age, he’d think about when he’d be a famous Tunnelers player. They wouldn’t have to worry about money anymore. Maybe a professional chef would even cook their meals for them. _Then_ he could be proud of himself.

Now the image of his future was more like an opaque gray fog. He wanted to shut his door and close the blinds and crawl into his bed under the quilts and not come out until next summer. And he wanted to flat-out sprint as hard as his body could take it, sun beating down on his back, until he reached the end of the dock and he would throw his arms wide and dive into the bracing waves.

Man, he was going crazy, wasn’t he?

He was interrupted by Haley rounding the corner of the Saloon.

“Oh, hey,” she waved. “I was just coming to look for you.”

“Hey,” he replied, with a half-hearted smile.

“Do you wear those clothes every day?” She said, looking him over critically.

He looked down at his track pants and the oversize Tunnelers sweatshirt that had become his replacement daily uniform since he’d left the hospital – his letterman jacket hadn’t been able to fit over his cast at the time. Then it was the easiest thing to put on, and after that, it’d just become habit.

“You can get lost if you’re gonna be like that. It’s not like I go anywhere anyway,” he grumbled, crossing his arms self-consciously.

She sighed loudly. “Alex. It’s not like you _can’t_ go anywhere. You don’t _have_ to sit in your room all day. Come to the beach with me, the weather is _killer_ right now!”

He didn’t know how she was able to find and hit that raw nerve with such precision. And she was putting on her begging puppy face, as if it wasn’t already killing Alex that he couldn’t get to the beach. As if he wouldn’t give anything right now to be able to hop on down there with her. As if he was just choosing to stay inside to be dramatic or something.

He felt an irrational rush of anger, heat rising to his face.

“ _Haley,_ ” he fumed, “You have absolutely _no idea_ what I can or can’t do!”

“I’m just saying, like, how much have you _tried_ to do other stuff. Like, when was the last time you came over, or we hung out on the bridge, or– anything? That stuff isn’t even that far. And aren’t you supposed to be, like, pushing yourself to do more stuff so you can get better faster?”

“Why would you assume I’m not already pushing myself? What is wrong with you?” He was too furious to even think of what to say to all that.

“I dunno, Alex, you just seem like you’re so focused on not being able to do stuff anymore. Maybe it’s better to just try doing it already.”

“ _Haley_. You need to stop.” Alex tried to take deep breaths. “I can’t _fucking_ take my chair on the sand. And I can’t balance on the crutches in the sand either. _I cannot go to the beach_ ,” he said, like he was explaining it to a child, teeth gritted in his effort to keep from shouting. “And I might be able to get _to_ your house, but if I spend too long there, I can’t get back. I never know when I’m going to lose all my energy, okay? And sometimes, when I wake up I already have zero energy, or my entire body is on fire with pain from doing too much the day before, so, yeah, sometimes I _actually_ _can’t_ get out of bed.”

“Yoba, Alex.” She flipped her hair in irritation and crossed her arms. “There’s no reason to get so mad at me. How would I know any of that – you never tell me anything?”

“What are you talking about? You barely even come by anymore – when would I have the opportunity to tell you?”

“Hm, maybe because whenever I do come over, you’re all moody and it’s like pulling teeth getting you to have a conversation with me! You can’t have it both ways, Alex. Do you want space or do you want me to try to be supportive? Let me know when you’ve figured it out.” She spun and stalked away. before he could open his mouth.

Alex’s overwhelming frustration at Haley was suffused with a feeling of helplessness. He could tell he was sinking himself further into a hole of his own making every day, and he could never seem to realize it was happening until he was already deeper.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Look, the day of Alex’s accident it was a warm spring day in the city and Alex had taken off his letterman jacket for a sec, which meant the paramedics didn’t need to cut it off him. See? I let Alex have nice things sometimes.
> 
> I may need to switch to weekly updates? I've been burning through finished chapters faster than I'm able to finish chapters further down the line since doing final edits on the finished ones has been more time-consuming than I expected, and I don't want to have to take a break from posting. I also have 2 other stories that distracted me a little this week, oops... So, depending on where my focus and interest take me this week (livin' the ADHD life :) ) I'll either see you all again Wednesday or Saturday.
> 
> Thanks for reading! :)


	9. Blitz

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Additional Chapter Tags: interpersonal conflict/fighting

“Look, Haley,” Ty explained emphatically, “Today I walked in on him lying in the dark, in the same clothes I saw him in three days in a row, just tossing a baseball in the air over and over. He needs _something_. An intervention. Anything. Evelyn’s been, like, begging me to get him outside.”

“Well, good luck with that, I tried to talk him into it a few days ago and he totally went off on me.”

“Really? About what?”

“I told him we should go to the beach because all he does is stay inside and he started shouting about how he can’t go on the beach in his wheelchair and how I don’t know what it’s like and I never come to see him and stuff,” she huffed.

“That’s it!” Ty’s wheels were spinning now. Good. An idea. A plan. It felt like he finally had a foothold in this whole mess.

“What is?”

“We should… construct something. So he can go on the beach. Alex loves the beach; it must really suck that he can’t go – especially now that it’s getting to the end of summer.”

“Ooh, I’m _really_ not in the mood to do that jerk any favors right now,” Haley scowled, “But… I’ll admit it’s a good idea. Maybe he’ll stop being such an asshole if he can get to his precious fucking beach.”

Ty grinned in triumph. “That’s the spirit!”

The two of them drew up the plans at Haley’s, and consulted Robin on the construction, who gave their blueprints her stamp of approval.

It took almost a week of sneaking around – although, there wasn’t _all_ that much sneaking, since Alex would actually need to go more than a few yards from the house to see what they were doing – but after all their hard work, they finally got to step back and admire their finished product with, in Ty’s estimation, a fortnight or so of true summer weather left.

Ty’s next step was luring Alex out of his bedroom – a task that was seeming increasingly difficult. But at long last, the stars apparently aligned and Ty was _finally_ bringing Alex to see the results.

“I thought we were just hanging out outside.”

“Just come with me, I want to show you something,” Ty coaxed.

“Where are we going?” Alex replied, unconvinced.

“Over to the south bridge.”

“Why?” Alex squinted in suspicion.

“I’ll show you – come on!”

Alex frowned, but followed Ty.

As they arrived at the bridge, Ty caught the moment Alex noticed the long path of planks, his eyes widening. It functioned as a bridge that wound from the entrance to the beach to furthest right end of the pier, raised slightly above the sand and anchored every few yards by stubby wooden posts.

“Oh, wow…” Alex trailed off. “I can… go across the beach.” He looked a little stunned. “Did you do this?”

“Yeah. Well, me and Haley. We just thought, since you used to go on the beach so much, it would be good to have a way to get there,” Ty felt jittery with anticipation. “Do you wanna go do something now?”

“Um, I don’t know…”

“It’ll be fun! We could just fish or watch the surf – and maybe another time we could even toss a ball around like good times, right?”

“Yeah, I’m not sure about that, Ty.”

“Come on, it’ll be a great way to get out of the house, you know.”

“ _Tyrone!_ Stop.” Ty suddenly registered the anger in Alex’s voice. “I’m just another project to you, aren’t I? ‘Oh, yeah, I think today I’ll fix a bridge, and then I’ll fix the buses, and then maybe this afternoon I can work on fixing Alex.’” The words hit Ty like ice water, and Alex was continuing before he could even compute how to respond. “I haven’t even been a _person_ since the accident – all I am to people is a new story to gossip about, or a patient, or a burden, a fucking punchline… And to you I’m a project. I don’t need your sympathy, Ty. I’m just tired. I’m tired of everyone telling me what would help me when nobody even asked in the first place.”

Alex shook his head and turned around in one smooth movement back up the path towards town.

Ty gathered his thoughts. _Fuck._ He had really screwed things up this time. Ty’s stomach churned with waves of nausea.

Alex was right. Ty had done that thing he always did where he got an idea and then his vision completely tunneled onto that one finish line he’d set for himself. Where had things gotten so out of hand? Alex probably thought he had some sort of gross hero complex or something.

Ty wanted to run after him and explain everything – he hadn’t meant it like that – he just wanted to help. But the last thing this situation needed was Ty desperately trying to justify his actions even more. Cursing under his breath, Ty retreated to his farm to think about what on the planet he was going to do to fix this.

***

Alex felt hot tears gathering in his eyes, and he looked up, stubbornly willing them not to fall. He pushed his wheelchair angrily up the slope from the stone bridge and saw Haley coming up the path in his direction.

“Didn’t I tell you to stop telling me what _you_ think I need?” He was raising his voice. He never did that.

“Are you mad about Ty’s whole wooden-bridge-thing too?” Haley snapped, as she caught up to him. “Why do I even bother with you anymore? Nothing anyone does is right.”

“Haley, I am literally telling you what- you know what, never mind. I don’t know why I bother either.”

“Alex,” Haley was gentler now. “I just- I don’t know what you want from me. I keep doing the wrong thing, and so does Ty apparently. You know, he really, really tried with this whole thing. What do you want from us?”

“If you don’t get it, just leave me alone. Just go.”

“Alex-” She started, but her pleading tone sent a twinge of guilt through the hot, insuppressible anger, and he didn’t want to feel that. He just wanted to keep it ignited, let the anger take over and completely incinerate him and everything else around him.

“No. You know what? Here’s something I should have said a long time ago.”

 _No._ _You can’t tell her, you can’t do that to her_.

“What are y-” He didn’t let her finish, didn’t want anything to get in the way of his momentum.

“You wanna know why I was even in the city that day, Haley? Do you know?”

_Stop talking!_

“Because there was a reason I was going to the city the first weekend in spring.”

Haley grew quiet. She closed her eyes and swallowed, crossing her arms.

His next words died his throat. Yoba; she did know.

Alex had expected confusion ( _what do you mean, Alex?_ ) and then he would get to go for the knockout hit, _(it was to buy your birthday present)_ and then she’d argue with him, scream back, cry, refuse to listen.

Wordlessly, Haley turned back in the direction of her house, looking back at him, her eyes wounded and hollow.

They split ways silently, Alex withdrawing back toward his house. His anger smoldered down, condensing itself into the tears that were obstinately trying to spill over again. All he wanted right now was to be back in the dark hole of his room, away from everyone and everything.

_I told you! I told you not to say anything. You promised you would never say that to her!_

Well, maybe now Ty and Haley would finally leave him alone. He had always done just fine on his own – and anyway, things would be better off this way for all of them. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, this is the last chapter with actual fighting conflict in it.
> 
> Thanks for reading, for your patience, and for all the nice comments! 
> 
> I'm posting 2 chapters today because fuck it :)


	10. Pick-Six

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Additional chapter tags: body image issues, military stuff – mentioned, medical industrial complex, *suicide attempt – mentioned*, more beach-related scenes because I’m homesick for the Pacific Ocean 100% of the time help.

Alex woke up in a black mood. It was the first day of fall and summer was officially gone. His arm was all cramped up from lying on it weird last night, and a crying-hangover headache was making itself known with vicelike pressure on his skull. He passed the mirror as he was getting ready. Lately he stuck to pretending it didn’t exist, but today, scowled at it, gave himself a dissatisfied once-over, and decided it was best to keep it that way. He pulled on his Tunnelers hoodie, content to bury himself in the bulky fabric. ~~~~

All through breakfast, Alex could feel himself itching to pick a fight with his grandparents, but had enough sense to keep his mouth shut. He decided to head to the beach before he did something he’d regret later.

It had been a couple weeks since his blow-up at Ty. There was a part of his brain that told him he should be guilty about how he had handled it, and he should just be grateful and take everything back and apologize. It wasn’t that he didn’t appreciate the gesture at _all_ … It was just… more than a little embarrassing to have such glaring beacon of physical proof to the entirety of Pelican Town that he needed something to help him use the beach.

But he’d give farm boy one thing at least: his beach sympathy project did actually make it a lot easier for Alex to get across the sand in his wheelchair. Admittedly, being able to get out to the ocean had been one of the few distractions that made any of this bearable.

Alex stopped on his way out to check the stack of mail his grandmother left be the door.

There was a letter addressed to him – which instantly sent a small jolt of anxiety through him – but this wasn’t a letter from JojaCares or Zuzu City Hospital. Alex frowned at the Ferngill Republic seal emblazoned on the corner of the envelope and tore it open (pointedly ignoring that in his lack of coordination, he ripped a chunk out of the letter). He read:

To: Alex Millner

From: The Armed Forces of the Ferngill Republic

Subject: Notice of Release from Draft Lottery

This notice is to inform the recipient,  Alex Millner , that he has been removed from the Ferngill Republic Draft Lottery Registry by reason of: No longer qualified for military service .

Signed,

Leonard J. Hoburne

Minister of Defense

The Armed Forces of the Ferngill Republic

Alex couldn’t pinpoint what a normal reaction to receiving this kind of letter would be. He’d never had any remote desire to join the army. Maybe he should have been upset at another reminder of some path being cut off from him by the effects of his stroke, but he couldn’t really bring himself to care. He figured he should just let sleeping dogs lie on the whole feelings front and not think too hard about it. He indifferently tossed the letter into the trash and wheeled out the door.

It was damp outside, and Alex squinted up at the grey sky reproachfully as a spray of raindrops flicked onto his face. It was as if the sky was deliberately mocking him by being depressing as fuck for the last three days straight he’d felt he could actually leave the house. Just to spite the sky, he tugged his hood up and pushed forward to the beach anyway.

Today, he was concentrating too closely on navigating the wheelchair over the slick wooden boards, and got halfway down the boardwalk before noticing Sebastian sitting at the end, smoking and staring out at the ocean. He cursed to himself that he’d spent so much of today’s energy just getting this far, and turned to leave, when Sebastian noticed him.

“Oh, you don’t have to go. I was just going to finish this,” he said, gesturing with his cigarette. Alex hesitated before joining him at the end of the dock, skeptical of the situation.

They sat side-by-side, not speaking, both looking out at the gray, blurred horizon. Alex breathed deeply and tried to take in the cool, sticky, sea-spray air, focusing on the sensations, and tried to push out the self-conscious thoughts. He had come here to take a time-out to regroup and that’s what he was going to do.

His mind had finally convinced itself the silence had shifted from awkward to tolerable when Sebastian broke the silence.

“So, things sucking lately?” He kept his gaze steadily on the choppy waves.

“Huh, that’s an understatement,” Alex laughed humorlessly.

“Cheers to that.” Sebastian raised his cigarette in a salute and took another long drag.

Sebastian seemed satisfied with that exchange, because he didn’t make any other attempt at conversation.

It was immediately highly intriguing to Alex. The complete lack of asking him what was wrong or what Sebastian could do to help – or even any indication of interest in what was going on with Alex – twistedly made him want to spill everything.

“Everyone keeps telling me how grateful I should be,” he blurted out, “And they’re always trying to be helpful… but I just want to like… lie around and think about how pathetic I am all the time.”

“Hmm, I feel _that_ ,” Sebastian said darkly and nodded, as if Alex had just said something deep.

“And I keep just not getting out of bed all day and then other days I feel like I’m gonna die if I don’t run a mile immediately,” Alex continued, “And people keep telling me I’m not a burden when I obviously am.”

Sebastian stubbed out his cigarette end on the damp wood of the dock, but didn’t make any moves to leave. “That’s what I don’t understand, though,” he said, as if Alex and Sebastian had this conversation all the time, “Like, we’re all a burden on each other and a burden on the planet, sucking up its resources. All of us are a waste of space, huh?”

Alex didn’t know if that was where he had been going exactly, but it was certainly something he hadn’t considered. Sebastian seemed like he was on a roll now, though.

“But also, like, how is one person, like, you or me or whoever, made to feel worse for being a drain on our society than, like, Joja, for example? They’ll just take and take until every river and forest and person is completely squeezed dry and there’s nothing left. You know, one time, Joja was the company that took me to the emergency room because I– well, I tried to kill myself – but they charged me a thousand gold? And I’m the one considered the societal deadweight? Like, damn, can I just pay the EMTs the ten gold’s gas money and twenty gold’s hour of pay?”

“Hah, you should see my medical bills, bro.”

Alex figured he should return the curtesy of not prying into each other’s medical and mental health histories, despite his curiosity. But what he’d said was thought-provoking… He appreciated the way Sebastian hadn’t really denied that Alex called himself a burden, but also had made it feel like he wasn’t the problem. Maybe he wasn’t.

“Yoba, I’m sure,” Sebastian said, lighting up another cigarette. “Sorry, I kind of monopolized there.”

“Nah, it’s cool,” Alex waved away the apology, though unsure if he exactly remembered what ‘monopolized’ meant. “I actually feel kinda better.”

Sebastian nodded as he let out a stream of smoke.

“I’m getting a little tired though,” Alex admitted. “I have, like, zero energy now.” He also noted he was pretty damp from sitting out in the thin drizzle.

“That sucks. Well, see ya around, then,” Sebastian waved, barely turning to look in Alex’s direction as he spun himself around in the direction of town.

Alex reflected as he made his way back home. He didn’t know how relieving it would feel to hear someone respond without offering a suggestion or positive spin on things. Maybe it wasn’t totally bad for him to be all negative like that sometimes. He felt so much lighter after venting to Sebastian than all the times Haley or Ty had tried to cheer him up or distract him when he was feeling bad.

When he got back to his room, Alex actually did what his body was telling him to do for once and got in bed. For that afternoon, sleep came easy.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hah, joke's on y'all, I just wrote this to make more people listen to my rants about working in a healthcare-adjacent field.
> 
> Because of all the things I've googled while writing this fic, all the ads on my phone are for AARP and adult continence supplies.
> 
> Next chapter up next Saturday! :)


	11. Smashmouth

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Additional Chapter Tags: Questionable coping mechanisms, medical stuff, brief mention of ICUs. (This is the last hospital-heavy medical content that will be appearing).

Ty had been throwing himself into work on the farm: expanding his fields, planting the fall crops, and clearing out a section of land for the orchard he had been planning. It had had been keeping him busy so far. But work was usually a time for thinking, and today, he didn’t want to think. Ty fed his animals, filled his pack with supplies, and set out for the morning bus to Calico Desert.

His breath hung in the air as he waited for Pam to arrive. He was early – it was only 9:45. Ty bounced on his heels and looked down the path in the hope that Pam had also happened to arrive early. But, as it was still deserted, he gave up trying to wait around and started scanning the area for any plants he could sell later.

He had only been out to the Skull Cavern a handful of times since Alex’s accident. Although Ty was reluctant to admit it to himself, there was a part of him that had been staying close to town to be near Alex – just in case. In case of what, though? Alex had people to be there for him in case anything serious happened – he didn’t need Ty for anything. And Ty hadn’t needed Shane to tell him that what he should be doing right now was giving Alex his space. But he was ashamed of how difficult it seemed to stay away.

It was just… Last spring, everything had been fine and normal one day; Alex had been talking about being pumped that the weather was warming up; Ty’s biggest worries had been his continued attempts at getting over his crush and trying to learn how to cultivate rice. The next day, Alex was in the ICU, on a ventilator. For someone Ty had seen bench press well over 250 pounds, Alex had suddenly seemed so fragile.

Ty didn’t like thinking about those first few days, when the doctors didn’t know what was going to happen or what Alex’s condition would be when he regained consciousness – if he even did at all. Alex had been almost unrecognizable through swollen, bruised skin and layers of all the wires, tubes, net bandages, gauze...

Sometimes Ty had a hard time getting those images out of his head.

This was one of the several anxieties that kept cropping up now that he wasn’t spending so much free time with Alex. And it made it embarrassingly clear that he had been burying himself in Alex's problems so he didn't have to think of his own (what was he supposed to do with this helpless feeling? Why did thinking about Alex's time in the hospital still freak him out? When was he ever going to get over this stupid pathetic fucking pining?). Here he was, repeating the same old patterns he had hoped he’d left behind when he moved here.

The bus ride was quiet. Pam, who usually chatted about her problems (and the problems of half the town) for the duration of the trip, must have sensed Ty wasn’t in a talking mood.

The instant he arrived at the mines, Ty’s focus shifted to fighting and rock-breaking and foraging, the need to keep his wits about him finally allowing him some relief from the swirl of confusion, guilt, and unease in his mind.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Me, a swords-and-martial-arts queer who grew up using the metric system: what’s that thing Brie Larson does in that video? Bemchh hpress? pounds?? Yeah.
> 
> (I did spend 15 minutes referencing several tables to make sure it is possible for human beings to bench press 250lbs because do u think I know?)


	12. Quick Out

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Additional chapter tags: lite sanism, disordered exercise mentality *cw.

Alex visited the beach several more times over the next few weeks. Sometimes, he just took the time to get out of his head, and other days, Sebastian was there, and they had more talks like on that first rainy day.

He had always seen Sebastian as a weird loner goth kid; probably over-emotional and sensitive and, like, sacrificing small animals at midnight to shadow brutes. It was strange that they seemed to have a lot more in common than he had thought.

Today on the pier, Alex was quiet, knee drawn up to his chest, arm atop knee, positioned between his face and the world. His eyes were still red-rimmed and his throat raw from a particularly rough anxiety episode that still left his mind churning. This time it had been telling him all about how he deserved to be alone with how he had been treating his friends and how they were probably glad he was avoiding them, and how he deserved all the shit they must be thinking about him.

Sebastian was sitting on the other side of the pier, leaning up against one of the posts and flicking his lighter on and off.

Alex had had something on his mind that he kept hesitating to ask Sebastian. But he could hardly take this anymore, and what if Sebastian had answers?

“Hey, uh… Sebastian?” he started, hesitantly.

“Yeah?” He was swinging one of his legs off the edge of the dock absent-mindedly.

“Well, I know you said you have… anxiety.”

“Yup.”

“Well… um… Have you ever had anything where, like, you can’t breathe and all you can think of is how bad you are and it feels like you’re gonna die?”

“Hah. You’re looking at a connoisseur. A professional if you will,” Sebastian smirked.

Alex wasn’t sure for a moment if Sebastian was making fun of him, but he must have let that thought leak out onto his face, because Sebastian quickly backtracked.

“Yeah, well, those are panic attacks. It happens. So, I take it they’ve decided to grace you with their presence?”

Alex nodded slowly.

“Yeah, that’s rough,” Sebastian said, and for some reason the sympathy that came through didn’t irritate him.

“Is there anything that… helps? Like, stopping it before it gets too late to do anything about it, or something you can do once it gets to that point?” He rushed, feeling exposed as the words came out.

“Um, I don’t know, it depends. Taking my meds, or my inhaler–”

“You have asthma?”

“Yeah.”

Alex couldn’t stop his eyes from sliding down to the cigarette pack sitting next to Sebastian on the pier.

“Yeah, yeah, whatever, I’ve heard it,” Sebastian said, waving his hand like it dismissed whatever he expected Alex to say.

“All right then,” Alex went on, “So, you take pills to help with it?”

“Yep.”

“Does it work?”

“Well, it usually helps if I’m anxious to not work myself up into a panic attack, or if I’m already having one, makes it a little shorter. I can give you the number for the doctor I go to in the City. Well, I don’t actually _go_ there that often, they do it by video, mostly. It’s pretty convenient.”

Alex was uncertain. It seemed a little drastic. He didn’t think of himself as someone who took pills. Especially pills for being crazy. Well. Not that he thought _Sebastian_ was crazy.

He had definitely painted himself into a corner with that line of thought. This felt exactly like one of those things Ty would have something smart to say about, that would make his tangled thoughts unravel into something that made more sense.

“I don’t think so. But thanks,” Alex finally answered. “I don’t have a computer anyway,”

Sebastian whipped his head around to look at Alex incredulously, “You don’t– how do you…? Never mind.” He shifted, crossing his legs, and threaded his fingers together with resolve, getting down to business. “So, other than meds, breathing helps… or having a go-to thing I can repeat to myself instead of the shit my panic attack says I should think about…”

“Oh, we used to have to come up with things like that for gridball. Like, to get through a set or help with pre-game nerves.”

“What, like, ‘no pain no gain?’”

“Pretty much. Let’s see… There was, ‘champions train, losers complain’; ‘you earn your body.’ Even just ‘I got this.’ And coach used to say, ‘pain is temporary, quitting is forever,’ like, every day,” Alex recalled fondly.

“ _Yoba’s seed_ , okay, so not those,” Sebastian said, and Alex was a little surprised at the disconcerted look on his face. “Some of those are kind of fucked up, you realize that, right?”

“We used to say that stuff all the time,” Alex shrugged. Most people didn’t get what it took to become a winning gridball team.

“All right then, well, why don’t we just focus on something chill like ‘I got this?’” Sebastian still seemed unconvinced. He had clearly never played a sport before.

“That might be a good idea, actually,” Alex agreed. “Thanks, bro.”

He stopped as he looked over and noticed that Sebastian’s hair was a little different. Bits of it looked shorter, but the front part was still long, and there was a patch of hair shaved on the side that hadn’t been before.

“Oh, did you go up to Zuzu City?” Alex asked.

“No, why?”

“It looks like you did something different to your hair – you got a haircut, right?”

“Oh, yeah, I cut it last night,” he shrugged.

This threw Alex for a second.

“You cut it… yourself?”

“Yeah, I have clippers and stuff.”

“You can do that?!”

“What, you mean like, is it allowed?” Asked Sebastian, looking a little alarmed now.

Alex was suddenly filled with fiery desire. He had flirted with the idea on and off for years now…

“Can you cut _my_ hair?”

“I mean– I’ve helped friends shave their heads or get undercuts and stuff before, but–”

“Let’s do it!” Alex was wholly focused on the idea. Yes. This was going to be good.

Sebastian narrowed his eyes, scrutinizing Alex’s expression, then sighed. “Yeah, all right, I’m not gonna be the one to stop you from the time-honored rite-of-passage of solving a life crisis by impulsively chopping off all your hair, I guess. When are we doing this?”

“Can we do it now?”

Resigned, Sebastian replied, “Why not? Sure.”

“Okay, you run up and bring the clippers to my house; I’ll meet you there – your place is too far.”

Sebastian didn’t quite beat him back, but he wasn’t far behind Alex by the time Alex made it up from the beach. He lead Sebastian inside.

“In here,” he said, directing them into the bathroom. “Hold on, let me put the shower chair in front of the mirror so I don’t get hair all in the wheelchair.”

Sebastian stood out of the way while Alex positioned everything.

“Okay, ready,” he motioned to Sebastian.

“All right, what are we doing then?” Sebastian said, all business now, as he unpacked his kit. The cracked plastic case, plastered in band stickers, was held together by rubber bands, and the cord of the clippers was patched with electrical tape.

Alex considered his reflection, turning his head, deliberating. He had let his hair go untrimmed for much longer than he normally would have, and it was falling into his eyes. He ran his fingers through his hair.

“Shave it,” he said, with resolve.

“All of it? Like, all one length? Buzz cut?”

“Yeah.”

Sebastian came around to face him and set his hands firmly on Alex’s shoulders, eyes boring into him. “I want you to tell me you understand that I’m just here to enable. I just have clippers and a few guard sizes, okay? I am not responsible for any mind-changing after this hack job, got it?”

“Yeah, yeah, it’s fine,” Alex responded. He was single-mindedly focused on doing this, though, and waved Sebastian aside to dig through all the little plastic pieces in the kit. “What are all these for?”

“Those are guards. They go on the clippers to make it cut your hair different lengths,” Sebastian explained, selecting a big chunky one and holding it up. “We gotta start with the big one, because your hair’s so long, it’d hurt to use the small ones.”

“Why would it hurt?”

“I don’t know, it just does – it like, pulls your hair or something, so you have to work down.”

“Huh. People in movies always just seem to go for it.”

“Yeah, and it makes my scalp tingle every time. All right, are we doing this? Plug it in,” he said, passing Alex the cord. “Do you want to start it or should I?”

“You do it,” Alex replied.

Sebastian clipped on the thickest guard, started up the buzzers, and tilted Alex’s head. He immediately sheared off a chunk of hair in one steady, measured movement. The vibration radiated through Alex’s head; it was a little disorienting, paired with the soothing sensation of the plastic guard running across his scalp.

Sebastian was focused in on his task now, methodically mowing through each section of hair. It was a jolt watching a large swathe of hair on top fall to the sink, revealing the startling contrast between the old length and the new one. Before long, all of the long strands were gone, and Sebastian was rooting around in the box for another guard.

“So how short are we going here?”

“Basically, just go ahead and shave it,” Alex instructed, “But not, like, all the way bald, like, shiny, you know?”

“Okay, why don’t we go to a two?” Sebastian said, talking to himself, and dug through the mix of plastic guards. They tried it on a patch on the side of his head, and Alex thought it was fine, but could still stand to go shorter. Sebastian tested again with a size one.

“Yeah, that one,” he confirmed, a smile tugging at the corners of his mouth involuntarily.

Once Sebastian was satisfied everything was even, he stepped back so Alex could fully appreciate the finished result. Alex pulled himself up to standing and leaned on the sink to get a better look.

His head looked so weirdly bare, and his scalp was all pale.

Alex ran his hand over his hair, and turned his head to inspect it from every angle.

He broke into a grin.

“It’s perfect.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading, and see u next week! xoxo


	13. Hail Mary

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Additional Chapter Tags: disordered exercising cw, medical jargon, mild ableist language.

Alex pondered what he should do with his day. So far, he had spent the morning restlessly wandering about his room, unable to commit to doing one thing or another.

It was like a strategy game making it across a minefield: how could he make it to the end of the day without hitting any of the usual pitfalls? He needed to keep himself busy enough that his thoughts didn’t have a chance to run away from him and set off his anxiety, but not so busy that tomorrow he’d be stuck in bed from the excruciating pain and fatigue. No problem.

Right now, he was stopped in front of the mirror checking out his hair for about the fourth time, running a hand over the velvety hairs. He couldn’t help it. Taking it in, acclimating himself to the drastic change was somehow gratifying.

When his grandparents had come home that afternoon after Sebastian had shaved it all off, his Grandma’s shocked reaction had been perversely satisfying. He had never really had a rebellious phase – and he supposed getting a buzz cut wasn’t exactly all that rebellious – but this somehow still felt like it.

 _“Oh my, what did you do to your hair?”_ She had exclaimed, taking him by the chin and turning his head side to side to get a look at it. (Grandpa’s reaction had been more of an apathetic grunt before positioning himself in front of the TV – much less satisfying, albeit predictable.)

Alex made himself move away from the mirror. _Let’s find something to actually_ do.

His body felt stiff and bristled with that itchy energy again. But he could hear his grandparents’ activity through the closed door. Leaving his room would mean interacting with them, and the current of unresolved tension underneath all his interactions with them did not make that a particularly appealing option.

On the whole, he’d actually been doing pretty well. His AFO made it easier for him to walk, even if it was still for short periods, and there had been days that he’d been able to manage around the house without his wheelchair for the most part, if he took breaks now and then.

Alex glanced around the room for inspiration, and his eyes landed on the stack of weights in the corner.

Well, since he’d made so much progress, he _had_ to be ready to at least _try_ to get back to weight training. Alex decided to try lifting a dumbbell. _It’s only ten pounds, I should be able to take it no problem. A kid could lift ten pounds_. He’d be cautious about it, though – just try out a little bicep curl. Alex crossed over to the row of weights on his floor and used his left arm to put the ten-pound weight in his lap. He tested it out, slowly gripping it in his right hand, using his left arm to support his right arm, and raised it slightly off his legs.

He got a rush of satisfaction that he was able to keep it in his hand.

Alex stood slowly from his wheelchair, weight still in his hand, and steadied himself on his desk. He straightened his arm down, and began to raise the weight, bending at the elbow. His concentration was fixed on his form: elbow stationary, wrist straight, back as straight as it was going to get while holding himself up. But Alex had only moved his arm a few inches before his wrist started giving in. Alex started to lower his arm back down, but immediately could tell it was going too fast. He didn’t have enough strength to bring the weight down in the controlled way he was supposed to.

The sudden sharp pain in his shoulder joint as his arm fell to his side made him drop the weight, _hard._

Alex jerked his right side away to avoid hitting his foot, and lost balance. He fell back, and his left arm automatically shot out to try to catch himself on something, and landed on his wheelchair. Only his dumb ass hadn’t put the brake on, and he was flat on his back, wind knocked out of him, shoulder throbbing. Well, he guessed he deserved that.

He heard his grandmother at the door, “Alex? Are you okay? I thought I heard something falling.” She sounded upset.

He struggled to a seated position and checked himself over, considering if he was okay.

“Yeah, I just slipped.” He’d go with that. “I’m all good.” He might not be when his PT found out what he’d done, though.

He maneuvered himself onto the bed. His shoulder gave sharp stabbing pains every time it moved. It felt… very not right. He could feel tingling start to spread down his arm. _Dumbass,_ he thought, _you probably just set yourself back weeks of progress_. The familiar wave of self-loathing washed over him again. Instead of spiraling slowly into another attack, this time, his brain decided to be so panicked about the potential of having another panic attack, that it just immediately catapulted right into one anyway at full throttle.

Extra great.

Alex almost wished he wasn’t giving Farm Boy the cold shoulder right now. He always seemed to know what to do or say in these situations. Alex tried to remember the stuff Sebastian had suggested, or the kinds of things Ty had said to him during his panic attacks, but all he could think was _worthless_ over and over. Again.

_This is getting pretty old – can’t you think of any new anxiety fuel?_

The thought actually seemed to elbow its way through the roaring in his head.

 _Yeah, we’re not doing all this today,_ he thought, and, holding onto the feeling of jaded irritation, he was able to slow his breaths to a normal pace.

Alex wiped his eyes and collected himself. Crying about it wasn’t going to make his shoulder hurt any less. He’d give it a day or so to see if it improved on its own, but dug through the junk in his bedside table drawer and pulled out the business card for his doctor’s office just in case.

He slumped back against the pillows and stared at his ceiling. Well. Turned out lifting was a two-birds-one-stone way to set off both his brain and his body. And now he had nothing to do _and_ felt like crap.

Just another day of sleeping and staring at the posters on the walls, then.

Ty would probably say he needed to be nicer when he talked to himself (and to call his doctor right now instead of later, in all likelihood), but whatever, Alex wasn’t thinking about that guy right now.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There was this one Kim Possible episode where they get trapped in a TV and a background character says they're feeling 'moopy,' and my family uses this word so often that I forget no one else sees it as a word to describe one of the basic human emotions. Point being: a few more moopy chapters and then we're getting down to business. :)


	14. Half Time

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Additional Chapter Tags: blood mentioned, mild sanist language.

Ty finally reached the bottom the last staircase. His legs were shaking from fatigue and after a few more steps, they finally buckled under him, bringing Ty to his knees. Ty sat down heavily and lay on his back, trying to catch his breath. He pulled out a water bottle and poured the remaining water over his face and neck.

He had finally made it. There had been more than a few dehydration-fueled moments where he began to question whether the caverns had any bound or limit at all. But, through probably equal amounts of literally bleeding, sweating, and crying, here he was, at the bottom of the Skull Cavern.

Ty rolled over and sat up with effort, wincing in pain. His hand and arm were red and blistering from some near-misses, and the stitches from his last botched attempt to get to the bottom of the cavern were stinging. Harvey was not going to approve.

As his breathing slowed and his body began to cool down, Ty pulled out a field snack to try and keep up his energy for the trip back. He stared blankly at the rocky cavern wall and chewed.

He had been working for this for so long, but now that he was here, he just felt… empty. Another task filled just to check it off.

That was all he was doing anymore wasn’t it? He had managed to turn living off the land into the same mindless, meaningless, never-ending, _obsessive_ pursuit he’d sunken into as a Joja employee. There had even been nights lately that Ty awoke in a cold sweat from one of the old recurring nightmares of working for Joja, which had plagued him even almost two years after he moved. Ty wasn’t using other people’s problems to avoid his own, but he was still avoiding his problems.

He was going to make himself crazy like this – waiting around in a weird limbo, doing everything to not have to feel hurt and sad and guilty about possibly losing a friend. But he didn’t know whether Alex was ready to make up, or if he wanted to at all. What Ty could definitely be sure of right now, though, was that Alex just didn’t have romantic feelings for him. And Ty _was_ going to make peace with that.

What he didn’t know was if Alex still wanted a friendship with Ty. And he probably needed to make his peace with that too. He had to be prepared for the answer to be ‘no.’ And he could understand it if Alex decided it _was_ a ‘no.’ It would suck – it would _really_ suck – but they both had other friends; they could be okay; they could live their lives – right?

Ty didn’t even know if trying to make up with Alex would be a good thing for himself; his feelings for Alex had been a source of stress for so long, and he had never been able to stop them before. Maybe what Ty needed was to make his own closure – for their fight, for his feelings – everything. Regardless of what Alex wanted.

Ty thought that he would rather have his friendship with Alex than no relationship with him at all. At the end of the day, what he wanted was to spend time doing things they liked doing together and helping each other be their best selves.

But he wasn’t going to find out if Alex was in a place to talk to Ty by sitting at the bottom of a cavern.

Ty pulled himself to his feet, stuffed his water bottle back into his backpack, and headed for the cage at the far end of the room to make his ascent back to surface.

Ty usually liked to discuss important things in person, but with the way their last encounter ended (and with everything going on in Alex’s life,) the idea of confronting Alex and putting him on the spot about if he wanted to talk didn’t sit right with Ty.

He would send a letter. It would give Alex the opportunity to think about things, and if he wanted to respond, he could, without the pressure of Ty being there.

And aside from everything with Alex, Ty was going to spend some time on his farm, with his animals and crops, just tending to them and being satisfied with where things were right now. For now, no more plans, no more expansions. He couldn’t spend any more time driving himself further and further into that frame of mind that had finally broken him five years ago. That wasn’t a hole that could be filled.

As the chilly night air hit his face, he resolved to write his letter first thing tomorrow.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Speaking of half time, it’s possible we’re halfway in terms of chapter numbers? We’ll say x/30 chapters plus or minus a few. Definitely not halfway word count-wise, though, I’ve gotten a little out of control since the beginning of writing this and thinking it would be like 10k words tops…


	15. Throw it Away

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Additional Chapter Tags: descriptions of disordered exercise thoughts and behaviors *tw*, disordered food attitudes briefly mentioned/implied, medical jargon, mild ableist language.

Alex was sitting with Dusty in a patch of grass behind the house, shivering as a brisk fall breeze blew down his neck, and lamenting the end of summer. Despite being outside, Alex felt cooped up. With his shoulder still bothering him if he did much moving around with his right arm, he had been staying even closer to home than usual the last few days. He was on strict orders from his recovery team after subluxing his shoulder: one-arm drive only on his wheelchair until cleared by his doctor, no crutches at all for now, and _definitely_ no heavy lifting. Alex was already lucky he hadn’t fully dislocated his shoulder or torn anything.

He had been really stupid.

Why had he felt the need to lift so badly that he had convinced himself he was in a condition to be able to lift ten pounds with an arm that not too long ago had such low muscle tone, doctors had warned him that the weight of his arm alone could dislocate his shoulder? And why was he feeling so antsy about being told he had to rest as much as possible for an indefinite period while his shoulder recovered?

A fear tickled at the back of his mind that if he didn’t start trying to get back on track with his workouts, he’d just keep falling behind on his training. But how was it _possible_ that there was any part of him that still held on to the idea that he had anything to fall behind on? Was there still some lingering hope that he could somehow still play gridball? Yoba, that was sad. He couldn’t even stand up for more than a few minutes at a time. _No amount of working out was going to get him on the Tunnelers._

But it was the echoes of that thought that made Alex’s insides harden. _No amount of working out was going to get him on the Tunnelers._

_No amount of working out was (ever) going to (have gotten) him on the Tunnelers._

With a sickening feeling, Alex reflected; when had he ever actually _done_ anything _practical_ to reach his goal other than adding more and more reps and cycling through different iterations of the same regimen? Working out had been the only thing that made him feel in control of what he was going to do with his life. He had been clinging tighter and tighter to his routine and the single-minded idea of going pro, blocking out any doubts from possibly seeping in.

Alex thought about how much building muscle and keeping lean and getting protein and increasing his reps day by day had expanded to fill his time and thoughts. His daily gym time prior to his stroke was a whole hour longer than it had been not even a year beforehand. Winter would make him all annoyed and restless since he felt like he couldn’t work out as much; only in the warmer months would his sense of equilibrium and normalcy return. (Though didn’t he always end up spending twice as much time at the gym in the winter than he ever did the rest of the year?)

In hindsight, none of that seemed… good, or… normal... He’d been losing himself to his routine so much, he barely knew who he was without it. When did it get to that point? And how? It scared him a little thinking about it. If more free time than he knew how to fill hadn’t been forced on him by his circumstances, he probably would never have even stopped long enough to reflect on any of this. And Alex doubted he would have ever considered _not_ going pro unless something completely cut him off from the possibility.

It was just sad thinking about it that way. What, would he have ended up one of those washed-up middle-aged men who spent all their time trying to relive a peak that had passed them decades ago? As a matter of fact, the only difference between himself and those men was about twenty years, wasn’t it? He was glad he’d never know how far he would have let himself go down that path.

Alex lay an arm on Dusty and the dog inched his front half onto Alex’s lap. His proximity was a reassuring anchor, and Alex wrapped both arms around him.

He didn’t need to train. He didn’t have to keep trying to become a professional athlete.

Honestly, just thinking those words gave him a sense of… relief? That some outside force had made the decision for him that he wasn’t going to be a gridballer. Now no one had to see him fail for a lack of self-discipline or resolve or skill. It wasn’t his fault some driver hadn’t been paying enough attention to the road. But, more than that, as terrifying as it was to have no direction in life, Alex felt a weight he didn’t know had been there start to ease up off his shoulders.

Maybe there were times where giving up was the best option – or even a _good_ option.

Alex wished he could talk to Ty about all this. He needed to get these thoughts out of his head. Sebastian had been really great to talk to, don’t get him wrong, but there was no person you could get to know in a few weeks’ time who could replace four and a half years’ friendship.

Alex groaned internally. With some reluctance, he acknowledged to himself that he missed Ty too much to keep this up forever. He was constantly catching himself wanting to tell Ty something or another ( _I need to_ _tell Ty about this, he’d think it’s hilarious –_ _Gotta admit to Ty he was right about number 76, that rookie really does have the stuff – I wonder if Ty ended up trying to make a giant pumpkin this year, I should ask him_.)

He still needed to talk some stuff out with Ty before he could feel like things could go back to normal, but his anger had finally quieted enough that he trusted himself to try.

Alex hauled himself to his feet and back into his wheelchair, obediently keeping weight off his injured arm, and returned Dusty to his pen before retreating back to his room, this time, with a purpose in mind.

He dug around in a desk drawer and pulled out a notepad and pen. Alex positioned the paper and pen carefully and concentrated hard on making the letters legible with his left hand. His mouth bunched up with the effort.

_Ty,_

_Could we meet up sometime soon? I want to talk about some things._

He set the pen down to look back at what he had written, surprised that it was only two sentences with how long it had taken to even get that down.

Yikes. It was legible, but barely. He wasn’t going to send Ty a note that looked like a child wrote it.

Alex crumpled it up and swept it into the trash.

He chewed on the end of the pen. This might take some more problem-solving.

Before he had the chance to do so, he was interrupted by a knock on his door. Alex called to come in, and his grandmother opened the door.

“Hello, dear,” she smiled softly from the doorway.

“Hi, Grandma.”

“How is your shoulder feeling? Can I get anything for you?”

“It’s okay, Grandma, I don’t need anything,” he replied.

He could feel her affection from across the room as a tangible force, rekindling the guilt he had been feeling about avoiding his grandparents. He had been shutting them out, but still, she was always looking out for him; she had never stopped being her usual caring self through everything Alex was putting them through.

“Okay, dear. Well, there was some mail that arrived for you,” she said, coming in and handing Alex an envelope.

“Oh, cool, thanks.”

He turned it over in his hands. It hadn’t been sent through the post: all it had was his name.

He looked back up at his grandmother as she turned to leave the room. He had been such a brat recently. There hadn’t been a reason to take any of this out on her, of all the people in his life.

“Grams?”

“Yes, Alex?”

He hesitated, thinking about what he wanted to say. “I know I’ve been hard to deal with. I’m sorry.”

She came over and held her arms out, inviting a hug, and Alex leaned into it, hugging her back.

“I’ll try to be better,” he frowned.

She leaned back, hands resting on his upper arms.

“We’re all just doing our best, all right? I know that.” She smiled down at him. “Now, if I made a batch of my pumpkin cookies today, would you eat some with us?”

“Yes, Grandma.”

“All right, Alex,” she moved towards the door and paused. “Don’t be too hard on yourself, dear.”

Alex swallowed, still trying to suppress the shame settling in the pit of his stomach, but his Grandma just smiled again.

“I’ll let you know when the cookies are ready!”

Once she had turned and closed the door, Alex opened the note and read it three times to make sure he understood all of it:

_Hi, Alex,_

_I want to let you take whatever time you need, but I decided to write so you’d know where I stand, and in case you were waiting for me to say something first._

_I’m really sorry for how I was acting. You were right and it was shitty of me to do something big like that without talking to you. Our friendship has always been important to me, and I will do my best to listen to what you’re telling me if you still want me to._

_I’m not looking for anything from you by sending this, either – you don’t have to respond or accept my apology. But if you want to talk more at some point, I’m here._

_I’ll let you get on with it._

_\- Ty_

Well. Sometimes the two of them were on the same wavelength in an entirely creepy way.

Ty sounded messed up right now. Alex hadn’t really expected that. Ty was always so bright and unreserved around everyone, but here he seemed somber and resigned. Alex had let himself imagine that during this time, Ty had been indignantly thinking Alex was being stubborn, or ignorant, or moody for lashing out at him.

The small part of Alex that was still angry thought, _good, he should be messed up,_ and was spitefully gratified by Ty saying Alex was right. But for the rest of him, Ty’s letter only strengthened the feeling that it was time to make up.

Alex scrapped the idea of trying to find a way to send Ty a letter, and made a beeline for the door.

“I’ll be back!” he called to his Grandma as he sped through the living room.

When he reached the front door, he flung it open and immediately collided with someone’s knees.

“Hey, watch it,” he said, before looking up to see that it was Ty.


	16. Trenches

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> No additional chapter tags that I could think of other than me being cheesy (don't worry, it only gets worse :) ). Always feel free to let me know any time you think something should be tagged or if something should be tagged differently, though!

Ty knew he must look ridiculous sprinting across the town square in the middle of the day. Nothing warranting sprinting ever happened in Pelican Town (except maybe the time Pierre and Morris had come to blows).

He was cursing himself all the way from the farm as he ran. He knew he had made some errors in judgement when he left that letter in Alex’s mailbox.

Of course, in all his ruminating on whether writing it was the same kind of over-concern about Alex that had made him fuck things up in the first place, he had not actually thought about the fact the Alex had told him – on numerous occasions – that writing was difficult for him now.

Ty had dropped off the envelope, and strode across the town square, trying to put as much distance between him and the letter as possible. But as he walked past the bus stop, he had bent over to re-tie his bootlaces, and the task reminded him of Alex mentioning he left his shoes knotted now because… the fine motor movements… Shit.

Maybe the resolution he had felt returning from the Skull Cavern had just been an exhaustion-induced delusion.

Ty finally made it back to the Mullners’ and _of course_ it wasn’t in the mailbox anymore. And then, to his horror, when he went to knock on the door ( _to do what – steal it back?_ ), it opened before he even had time to raise his hand.

“Hey, watch it!”

It was Alex.

His hair had been shaved in a short buzz cut. It was startling at first, but Ty thought it made him look... more like _Alex_ , somehow. Now he was Alex minus the trendy hair, minus the hair gel, minus the high school jacket, minus the smirk. It only made it easier for Ty’s attention to hook onto his dark brown eyes. Ty was pretty sure his mouth stayed open a second or two longer than whatever the straight version was of being surprised to run into the guy who wasn’t talking to you at his own house after you had sent him a letter fifteen minutes ago.

There wasn’t a straight version of that, was there?

“Alex! You finally shaved your head!” Ty blurted out.

“Neat, huh?”

He had his lopsided arrogant smile on, but his eyes had locked into a blank, watchful stare.

“Yeah, it looks good, man. I mean – fuck. Sorry.” Okay, so he had defaulted to his crush mentality. That was to be expected – he wasn’t used to this – but he could pull himself together. “Um, so, I left a letter for you, but then I remembered that writing probably wasn’t the best way for me to say those things and expect a response. I wasn’t thinking, and I should have. Do you want me to leave?”

“No,” Alex’s face had relaxed and he was now, for some reason, looking at him sheepishly. “You’re good. I got the letter. You know, it’s funny, I was actually writing you a letter before my Grandma gave me yours, to say I wanted to talk.”

“Oh.” Ty was having a hard time registering that these statements did not sound like Alex still being pissed at him. “You want to talk?”

“Yeah. I kind of miss getting to hang out with you, and I think we’re too good friends to keep this up, you know?”

“Yeah, same here.”

“You wanna go sit with Dusty?”

They parked themselves outside Dusty’s pen, Alex in his wheelchair with one leg pulled up to his chest, and an arm slung over the fence to pet Dusty, Ty on the grass next to him with his back against the wooden boards.

“Sorry for being an ass,” Ty started.

“Sorry for being a dick,” Alex countered, still looking ahead.

“No, you were definitely justified getting angry.”

“But I didn’t need to blow up at you – ‘cause I wasn’t even just mad at you, it was, like, everyone. Everyone constantly had to add their two cents on what would help me and what was going wrong.” He sighed and considered before continuing. “And I know I complained to you about a lot of that stuff, but I don’t really need, like… help about it or anything most of the time.”

“Yeah, the reasonable part of me does know that. I was just… doing what made me feel better about feeling like there was nothing I could do to help. Which is messed up. But I’ll try to actually ask and… you, know… listen to you, going forward.”

“I know. Thanks.”

“Okay. Just be sure to kick me in the shins if I start doing it again,” Ty added. Alex smiled, and Ty felt his muscles release a tension he hadn’t realized he’d still been holding. “How have things been going lately, anyway? We haven’t really talked in a while.”

Alex looked up at the sky.

“Hm. Well. The only time I left the house in the last four days was yesterday, when I went to PT and, like, sitting outside ten feet away from my house for fifteen minutes. And Grandpa and I aren’t really talking to each other. Oh, and neither are Haley and I because I said some _really_ shitty things to her. And I– well… I injured my shoulder trying to lift,” he confessed. Ty furrowed his brows at Alex. “And now I’m having a mid-life crisis about not knowing what to do with my life! So, I think that’s the highlights. Clearly I’ve been handling things great over here.”

Alex was trying to make light of it all, but… that was a lot to deal with.

“That’s some heavy shit.”

Alex shrugged.

“Is there… anything I can do to help it be less shitty?”

“Like I said, I can manage doing pretty much everything on my own these days, Ty.”

“You know what I mean.”

Alex shrugged again. “I’ve been talking to Sebastian about stuff. That’s been good.”

“Sebastian?” Ty was genuinely surprised at this. It was difficult imagining them standing in the same room together.

“Yeah, he’s chill.”

That was true – Sebastian listened and talked about himself, never really asked much of you other than to be company and listen in return. Ty was the opposite; he was aware of his tendency to push people; push them to talk and figure them out, push them to do things they wanted to do that they didn’t think they could. He just… could be a little better at knowing when to let up.

“He is pretty chill.”

They fell quiet again. Ty resisted the urge to pull up blades of grass and knot them together like he used to as a child, and instead threaded his fingers together.

“I guess the thing is,” Alex cut into the silence, “I don’t really know what to do about most of it. I don’t know what even could be helpful or what someone else could do to help. Like not getting out of bed: that’s just going to happen some days. And a lot of this stuff, I just have to deal with on my own – it’s just a waiting game with my pension; and I was the one who messed shit up with my grandparents, and Haley, and you. I don’t even know where to start with figuring out what on the planet I’m going to do with my time every day now...”

“Well, if you ever wanted – if it would be helpful – to think of some ideas, I’m here. And Sebastian.”

“Maybe. It’s probably time for me start dealing with some of this shit, huh?” Alex was quiet for a while before speaking again in a low voice. “Um… it is helpful when you talk to me when I have those panic attack things.”

“I can do that,” Ty said quietly.

“And, I actually have been going to the beach. So. Your bridge thing works.”

“Oh.” Ty didn’t know what to say. He wasn’t sure how sore of a subject it still was. 

“It’s… been really good going to the beach actually. I guess I should thank you.” Alex cleared his throat. “But, uh, what have you been up to, then?”

Ty took the cue; that was the end of that subject for the time being.

“Made it to the bottom of the Skull Cavern out in Calico Desert.”

“Is that all? You haven’t singlehandedly taken down the rest of JojaCorp yet?”

It made Ty happier than he wanted to admit seeing Alex’s easy smile again.

“Still working on it,” Ty half smiled back, still trying to move through the residual guilt.

“Dang, so I still have to pay my medical bills,” Alex teased. “Well, glad you didn’t die doing that, bro. Harvey didn’t have to patch you back together again or anything did he?”

“Uh… right. Definitely not.”

“Ty! Again?”

“Look, this guy at the casino basically dared me to get to the bottom, so, what was I supposed to do?”

_Yeah, it was because of Mr. Qi. And definitely not to try to forget you._

“Yoba, _do not_ tell my grandmother. She already constantly talks about being worried about you ‘all alone up in that farmhouse.’”

“Aw, man, I’ve missed Evelyn.”

“Grandma’s actually making cookies right now. Wanna come inside?”

“Ugh, I would kill for a pumpkin cookie right now. I haven’t had any yet this year.”

Alex grinned over his shoulder as he led the way back to the house. “Just one of the many perks of knowing me!”

Ty cautiously let himself feel optimistic. It was really good to have this back. He was probably in some kind of probationary period with Alex, but, that conversation was surprisingly… not terrible. He wasn’t going to let himself get comfortable yet, or take Alex’s friendship for granted, but for now, he allowed himself a small smile as he followed Alex inside.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (You're a pusher) 
> 
> (Sorry)
> 
> Thank you for reading, your comments give me life!   
> I'm at the end of chapters I've completely finished, and I have personal/family stuff on the horizon that may impact my update speed? But, who knows. It would help if I could stop adding in extra chapters... Going to keep planning on once a week for now anyway. So on that note:  
> See u next week!


	17. Scrimmage

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Additional chapter tags: implied recreational drug use.

By the end of the week, Alex was completely drained. It was the kind of exhaustion that mingled with satisfaction, like when the team would have several grueling gridball practices in a row that hammered them into the ground: he’d hate absolutely every minute of it, but when the coaches finally let up, he’d always see their work had paid off.

He’d had his hard conversations with Haley and with his Grandpa. He was actually resting his shoulder this time and taking what the physical therapists said seriously. He had put out all the fires he had lit. But he was still back to square one, unable to see a course in front of him.

After taking a couple days to recuperate, Alex had agreed to hang out with Ty and Sebastian. Ty was still thrilled that the two of them had independently befriended each other, and had been trying to get them to all hang out (although both of them had thus far rejected his idea of watching gridball and playing Solarian Chronicles together. Just because he wasn’t on his way to a pro gridball contract didn’t mean Alex was _that_ much of a weirdo yet).

When they arrived, Alex’s Grandma had been thrilled that he was having more than one person over at once.

“Hi, Granny!” Ty grinned and made his way over to her in the kitchen.

“Hello, Tyrone!” his Grandma returned as they hugged.

Sebastian came in behind Ty, arms crossed and face hardened into a sullen expression that Alex knew hid discomfort around people he didn’t know well.

“And hello, Sebastian,” she smiled.

Sebastian looked caught off guard. “Uh... Hey.”

“You may also call me Granny.”

“Okay.”

The tense expression on his face was so far from the usual cool apathy that Alex wasn’t sure whether to feel bad or laugh. Sebastian uncrossed his arms as Evelyn came over to him and then crossed them again.

“Dear, aren’t you cold in just that thin jacket? It’s quite chilly today.”

“Oh. I’m fine.”

Evelyn pulled on a shawl from the coat rack by the door.

“All right, but you borrow one of Alex’s jackets if you need it on your way home – I’m sure it’s even colder up in those mountains. Well, I’m going out to work on the flower beds. You boys have fun!”

They gave their overlapping thanks, Ty waving as she left.

“Expect cookies in the mail,” Alex warned Sebastian, who just nodded.

“Hi, George,” Ty called as they headed back to Alex’s room.

“Hello, Mr. Mullner,” Sebastian mumbled.

Alex paused at the kitchen table to glance through today’s mail, but decided to keep moving as he recognized one envelope as a JojaCares notice and another as the electric bill. He hoped the electric wasn’t as bad as it usually got this time of year.

When he got to his room, Sebastian was already sprawled on the bed, with Ty occupying the floor space in front of it. The two of them were looking through one of Alex’s old issues of _Iron Physique_.

“You need an anatomy and physiology class to understand any of this stuff,” Sebastian frowned.

“Don’t even need to know how to read to appreciate _those delts_ ,” Ty pointed to the page they were examining.

Alex’s leg was bouncing with the kind of nervous energy he couldn’t just shake off. He wished, for what must have been the thousandth time, that he could go for a run.

“Do you even know what a ‘delt’ is? Oh, shit, look: _‘Studies show CBD helps build muscle’_!”

“You guys want to do something?” Alex interrupted. “I gotta get some energy out.”

“I still say we should all play SolChron together,” Ty pouted.

“ _No_ ,” Alex said firmly.

“ _I_ still think it’s hilarious you call it that,” Sebastian snickered.

Ty sighed dramatically. “Seb, as a Southern country boy, I wouldn’t expect you to understand this, but we big-city folks have better things to do than use entire words.”

Sebastian smiled with sarcastic sweetness. “You can eat my entire ass, Ty.”

“Alas, better things to do.”

“Like deciding what we’re doing _?_ ” Sebastian said pointedly.

Ty set down the magazine. “Right. So, gaming is off the table… top,” he smirked.

Sebastian held out his hand.

“That’s a hundred gold in the pun jar, Ty.”

“Hey, that was supposed to be for Abby!”

Alex remembered when he and Ty had had that same comfortable teasing between them. Not that it _never_ happened, but Ty had been different since Alex’s accident. It sometimes felt like Ty couldn’t completely relax around Alex anymore, like at the back of his mind he was always trying to work out how Alex was doing or if he was okay. It hadn’t been so bad lately, but since fighting and making up again, the cautious look was back. Although, it was true that Alex hadn’t been the most social or… stable person recently. But it still sucked to know it was his fault things were different now. He missed how simple things used to be.

Sebastian’s voice cut through his thoughts. “So, how much are you up for doing, Alex?”

“Oh. Yeah, let’s get out and do something.”

“Any ideas about what you want to do?”

“I don’t know.”

He did know. What he _wanted_ to do was weight training. His jaw clenched in frustration. Alex _was_ trying to think of something else to do, but his brain wasn’t cooperating.

“I keep getting stuck thinking about working out and it’s, like, blocking out my ability to think of other ideas. I know I could hurt myself, but I still really want to. Sometimes I need to distract myself with something else or leave the house so I don’t try anything stupid.” Alex cringed. “Yoba, that must sound crazy.”

Alex felt their eyes on him.

“I mean, it doesn’t sound _healthy_ ,” Sebastian finally replied.

“So that’s what happened with your shoulder?” Ty said, with a concerned frown.

“Yeah – and, I know, my PT already told me off. I don’t know what I was doing. It made sense in my head at the time? I just…” Alex looked away; he didn’t want to see their reactions. “I don’t want to do it again and hurt myself worse…”

“Do you think you will?” Ty asked.

“I don’t know. I’m nervous I might.”

“So,” Sebastian started, propping himself up on his elbows, “I used to have these really bad fights with Demetrius and my mom, ‘cause I’d get so wound up by things Demetrius used to say. And whenever it happened I’d tell myself I needed to calm down or walk away when I started getting pissed off, but once it got to that point? Yeah, I was too far gone.

“So, around when I got my bike, I started purposely going out and working on it around the time Demetrius stopped working for the day, or after dinner, or just when things started to get irritating. And I made Sam set a regular time for band practice so I had somewhere to be out of the house. Anyway, it was helpful to, like, have go-to stuff ahead of time to keep myself out of trouble and not do things I’d regret later.”

“I mean, that sounds great, and I probably should think of better distraction ideas, but the ‘being somewhere at a scheduled time’ thing isn’t one of my strong suits right now.”

“Okay, hear me out,” Ty said, “I know what you’re able to do changes every day, but, what if we had a set time every week for someone to come over, and, let’s say if it was me coming over, you could tell me whether you wanted me to go, or do something inside, or go out and do something. And then at least you’d know you’d be seeing another human being’s face even if you didn’t feel up for anything? But we could still hang out whenever on top of that.”

Alex nodded slowly.

“That… could work.”

Maybe Ty was on to something. Alex thought about how some days it wasn’t the pain, or the boredom, or the restlessness that got to him; sometimes just the feeling of being so alone and separate from everyone else could overwhelm him completely.

“Yeah. And, um, there could be times someone could stay but not even do anything?”

Alex immediately regretted saying it – he couldn’t ask someone to just sit around doing nothing, dragging them down into whatever shitty mood he might be having that day.

“Yeah, totally!” Sebastian was saying, like he thought it was a good idea. Ty nodded along with him.

“Are you sure?” Alex asked.

"Sometimes Abby and I do that when we need to be around people but don’t want to be _around people_. We just do whatever we were going to be doing alone, just with another person in the room. We’ve tried it with Sam, but… he’s not especially good at it.”

“Oh… All right,” he conceded, though Alex wasn’t entirely convinced either of them would actually end up voluntarily doing that more than once. “But, I’m not good at thinking of things to do. Which is the whole point, I guess. But if someone came over to do something it would just be like today.”

“Would it be helpful to make a list of stuff you could do with different people?” Ty asked.

“Probably.” Alex felt like he should probably have thought of that.

Sebastian stood up. “Why don’t we do that while we walk outside?” Alex opened his mouth in question. “– Doesn’t matter where, let’s just start. Come on.”

Ty hopped up and Alex grabbed his crutches, both of them following behind Sebastian.

Over the next month, they put their plan into practice: Alex helping Haley set up her dark room, Sebastian doing his freelance work on his laptop in Alex’s room, Ty and Alex watching gridball... And a surprising amount of doing nothing.

Alex still had a lot of bad days, and he probably didn’t have any fewer days he couldn’t get out of bed at all, but it seemed like, slowly, the inside days didn’t all have to be bad days, and he didn’t have to spend them alone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Make a Safety Plan – with the guys!
> 
> I… suffered trying to finish this chapter. In large part because I actually looked at bodybuilding magazines with my own 2 eyes. Hey, quick question, though: why is there a protein powder called Muscle Milk? I dislike that name, actually.
> 
> Thanks for your patience 😊. Aforementioned (good) life stuff arrived and has been very time-intensive this week – I’ll plan on posting vaguely weekly if I can for now.
> 
> Xoxo see u soon!


	18. In the Grasp

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Not really any additional chapter tags I could think of.

Today was a day when Alex could almost understand the appeal of fall. It was a bright and clear day, and a slight breeze was blowing the last of the leaves off the trees in a colorful confetti.

It was still freezing, though, and he paused to tug the sleeves of his hoodie over his hands before speeding up beside Ty again.

They were walking Dusty, and just passing the museum and Clint’s shop on the path from Alex’s house, across the river, down past Pelican Town’s easternmost shops, and then back across the river on the lower bridge. It was a loop they had talked about trying and hadn’t gotten around to yet, but when Ty had stopped by to see if Alex wanted to hang out, Alex had finally felt up for testing it.

For the first time in a while, it was shaping up to be… a good day. Alex had been able to shower and get ready for the day and still have some energy left over to do something. Grandma had made him a breakfast of eggs, pancakes, and hash browns – his unequivocal favorite – and even though there was frost on the ground, it was melting away in the sunlight. And maybe it was just the overly optimistic lens of today’s mood, but Ty seemed more his sunny, easygoing self than he’d been in a long time. Dusty had been relatively calm today, too, other than seeing a rabbit and almost yanking Ty’s arm off.

Alex and Ty waited for Dusty to finish his very important business of smelling the entire circumference of what was apparently an especially intriguing tree before continuing on their way.

Ty was in the middle of recounting something to Alex and was wearing his beanie in the dumb way he did, with it halfway sliding off his head. The beanie always appeared this time of year. Predictably, dependably; they could probably put it in the Farmer’s Almanac at this point. Alex was kind of fond of it, in a way. He didn’t really know why. It was just very _Ty_ , and seemed like as much a part of fall now as Grandma reminiscing about mushrooms.

Ty turned to Alex and grinned, his smile stretching wide. He was saying something that Alex had not been listening to, and was gesturing in the direction of the mountain. Alex noticed a spray of freckles across Ty’s cheekbones he hadn’t noticed before.

A light sensation swept through Alex’s chest. Like seeing a teammate make a difficult catch, or waking up and realizing it was the first day of school vacation. The polar opposite of the tightness of an impending panic attack.

It almost felt like–

But that didn’t make sense.

Because it was Ty – _a guy_. That type of feeling was… But, Alex wasn’t… He’d never…

He was barely processing what was happening in the real world, but they’d made it back to Alex’s house, and Ty was helping get Dusty back in the pen, and they were waving their goodbyes. Alex was still in a fog of confusion.

He sat in front of Dusty’s pen and absent-mindedly scratched his dog’s head. He’d had a lot of confusing feelings since spring, but this was a new level entirely.

Normally, whenever he had odd, unsettling feelings, duty would suddenly call – or perhaps be invented: it would be time to make dinner, or start studying, or get to working out, or look for some new protein bar recipes… But right now, he had plenty of time on his hands. He mentally shook himself off and tried to will into being the fortitude to press on with the line of thinking that was presenting itself.

Maybe the reason their friendship felt different… how things were so easy with Ty compared to anyone else... how he was always drawn to Ty in a way he’d never had words for was… because it wasn’t like a friendship type of feeling at all.

_Fuck._

It was definitely a crush type of feeling, wasn’t it?

But for a guy? He’d only ever been into girls his whole life, hadn’t he?

Alex thought about this for a moment.

Well, there _was_ that box in the corner of his mind. It was a little too easy to peek into it: inside were more fluttering-stuttering-stomach-dropping feelings at perplexing times. And many unintentional mental snapshots of locker room moments or bodybuilding magazines. And that time when he was in JV and he couldn’t figure out why he got so jealous when the wide receiver started dating an ex-girlfriend Alex hadn’t thought he’d cared about _that_ much. And lengthy internal monologues about how it was _normal_ to jack off to men he admired – it was just ‘cause he _admired_ their _accomplishments_.

Hm. Yeah.

It seemed Alex had… always liked guys.

Dusty nodded his head and snorted, alerting Alex to the fact that he’d stopped scratching Dusty’s head, so Alex quickly resumed.

It shouldn’t have made any sense, but it did; so many things seemed a lot less confusing somehow. Until another thought surfaced.

What about girls? Were they just something else to add to the list of things he had convinced himself he was enjoying just to feel like he was on any sort of conventional path in his life? He decided to make a new box and file this thought in there to deal with later. Having, like, five realizations at a time was more than enough for one day.

Alex decided it really _was_ time to help out with dinner now, though, and went inside. (His Grandma immediately sent him to change out of his hoodie: Alex hadn’t even noticed how dirty the sleeves had gotten on his wheelchair’s hand rims while wearing them over his hands.)

When he returned to the kitchen, Alex tried to get his day back into the normal routine, but he kept getting caught up in his own thoughts. His Grandma had had to repeat herself so many times after Alex had missed what she said that she eventually gave up and stopped trying to engage him in conversation at all. She handed him onions to chop and Alex started on them, still half in a daydream.

A memory kept prodding at him from the edge of his mind. It couldn’t have been long after Ty had moved to Pelican Town. Alex had been tossing around a gridball with him, and Ty had actually said he believed in Alex becoming a professional gridball player someday. He remembered that as Ty was leaving the beach, he had called out to Alex, and he remembered as he turned and saw Ty from across the beach, waving and calling out a goodbye, what a warm, elated sensation it had filled him with. That had been the first time he had that light feeling in his chest. He had dismissed it completely at the time – _what was that? Haha, weird. Well, I’m late for my afternoon workout._

With everything laid out in his head like this, he felt really, incredibly, ridiculous for never putting it together – both that he was definitely not-straight, and that he maybe-probably-kind of had some sort of feelings for Ty this whole time... The amount of time and effort Alex had been putting into avoiding thinking about himself and his life was clearly worse than he’d thought.

But now that he could say with at least some level of certainty that he _liked_ Ty, what was he supposed to _do_ about it? When he had been in high school, it had pretty much been, a girl had a crush on him and made it known. Alex asked her out. They did the relationship things.

He hadn’t had to deal with liking someone when he wasn’t sure what their feelings back were. Ty was gay, but it was ridiculous to think that meant he would have feelings for Alex. It was more likely that Ty didn’t see Alex that way at all: they’d been friends for so long. And Alex couldn’t have been the first person to have one-sided feelings for Ty – he was just so friendly and open and interested in everyone all the time. Ty was probably sick of people falling for him when he only wanted to be their friend, he’d just be annoyed that it was happening again. Alex could probably think of a hundred reasons why there was no way Ty would share his feelings and why it would be a very bad idea to say anything to Ty about it.

Alex looked down at what he was doing and realized he had run out of onions to chop, and there had been at least a half dozen in the bag. His Grandma seemed to notice this at the same time he did.

“Well, dear, we only needed, two…” she faltered, “But, I can put the rest in a container for later – thank you,” she added, trying to save the moment. “Why don’t you leave the rest to me?”

Alex felt his face going red.

“Sorry Grandma. Yeah, I should probably just stop…”

The heat didn’t leave his face as he went to his room and lay down on the bed. His eyes were unfocused, staring up at the ceiling, and he could feel his heart hammering against his rib cage.

Maybe he could talk to Sebastian about this? Or Haley?

No. He wasn’t going to say _any_ of this _out loud_ to _anyone_. Plus, what would he even say? He didn’t even know who he liked or what he was at this point. What did he need to talk about more: liking a guy, or who the particular guy was that he liked?

Sebastian seemed like a pretty chill guy, but they had never talked about what team they batted for or anything. How could you ever _know_ how someone might react to finding out… you know… until after you’d already told them?

And Haley… It was almost easier to think about telling Sebastian than Haley that he might be… _(gay),_ his brain let him think, in whatever the equivalent of a whisper was in his head.

Up until now, Sebastian and Alex had interacted as little as it was conceivably possible for two people living in a town with a population of thirty-five. He didn’t care _all_ that much if he didn’t live up to whatever Sebastian’s image and expectations of Alex had been. And Sebastian never seemed to give a crap no matter what Alex said to him; he always seemed ready to roll with any punches Alex threw at him.

But Haley knew literally everything about him. This was something big. It would be so different from how she saw him now. What if she didn’t _believe_ him?

Alex sighed internally. He should be giving Haley more credit than all this. It wasn’t really about telling Haley, or Sebastian, or anyone, was it? If Alex talked to someone about it, even just to say he was _wondering_ about _maybe_ (even though an irritatingly loud part of his brain was telling him he was more sure about this than he had been of anything since this spring), then it would be real, and out in the world, and he couldn’t take it back or change his mind. It felt like being asked to run a complicated play in the playoffs before they’d had time to run it all the way through in practice.

No. This was information he was just going to sit on for now. He didn’t have to know the answers to all the questions he had. There was no one but himself asking them. He had time to digest all this, settle into it, on his own terms, and that’s what he was going to do.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Jump cut to title: “The Gang Finds Out They’re Gay for Each Other.” Just kidding, you’re not getting off that easily.
> 
> Like Alex, the first time I had feelings for someone of the same gender, no joke, I was like “haha, nah, I’m not gay tho,” and repressed it so hard I didn’t remember it or realize I wasn’t straight until two whole years later.
> 
> Thanks for sticking with this story so far, and see you next week hopefully! :)


	19. Bootleg

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> No additional chapter tags, but you can always lmk if you think something should be tagged.

Ty was regretting the decisions he had made to lead him to his present predicament.

Theoretically, everything should have been great. It was a clear day. He was on the beach with Alex. They were lying back on towels in the sand. They’d talked about going swimming.

But it was fall. _Late_ fall. Ty was fucking freezing his ass off. He had suggested this activity himself, so it was his own fault… But Alex was actually doing something outside, so Ty was going to keep muscling through this.

The cold didn’t appear to bother Alex much, though. He just looked up at the sky with the same faraway expression he’d had the last few days whenever there was a lull in conversation. It seemed like he had pulled back into his head, distracted by his own thoughts – but in a strange way that was completely different from the times before when he had been shut-down and distant. Ty wondered what it was that kept pulling at Alex’s attention. He wasn’t sure why, but, uncharacteristically, Ty hesitated to pry further into it for now. ~~~~

He fought off a shiver as another frigid gust of wind blew in from the sea and pulled a Joja Cola out of his backpack in the hope that keeping his body moving would warm him up at least a little bit.

“Ugh, Ty, seriously, how do you drink that?” Distaste had replaced Alex’s preoccupied expression.

Ty pushed himself up onto his elbows and took a sip, savoring his favorite guilty pleasure.

“I can’t help it; I’m allowed to have _one_ flaw okay?”

“Yeah, and you used it up already on being _too nice_ , so you go overboard on doing _nice things_ for people,” Alex teased back.

“Yoba, Alex, too soon,” Ty cringed, “But, if you think that’s gross, I probably shouldn’t tell you I found this can in the trash.”

“ _Ty!_ ” Alex punched Ty in the shoulder. “Yoba’s sake, that’s actually disgusting.”

“Why? It wasn’t opened.”

“I do not know how to explain to you why digging around in trash cans is gross,” Alex replied, wrinkling his nose.

“It was out of Jodi’s trash can, does that help?”

Alex stared back at him, words seeming to fail him for a moment. “How could that _possibly help_?”

“Well,” Ty considered (though, he was really just trying to placate Alex – he would have taken it out of anyone’s garbage), “Jodi seems like a clean person. Like, she probably washes all her recycling with soap and everything before putting it in the bin. I feel like her trash would be cleaner than the average person’s, you know?”

At this, Alex burst out laughing.

“Cleaner _trash?_ Ty, that’s… That’s a good one.”

Alex’s laughter made Ty laugh too, and then they lost control of it and every time one of them would start recovering the other one would set them both off again.

They were both lying on their backs, completely caught in their laughter, both starting to get a little breathless (it wasn’t even funny, but then, everything’s funnier lying down). Ty wiped a tear from his eye, and the back of Alex’s hand rested lightly on Ty’s chest as they both began to recover. Ty’s heart started thudding so hard at the contact, he could feel it in his throat, and he desperately hoped Alex couldn’t feel how fast it was beating right now.

Ty turned towards Alex, expecting to see the same cheery, lighthearted expression turned upward at the sky. But Alex was looking right back at him. His expression was unexpectedly absorbed as the smile began to leave his face. He was _looking_ at Ty, like he was adrift, engrossed in something he would have thought was located directly behind Ty’s eyeballs if it didn’t feel like Alex’s attention was focused intently on _him_. Ty waited to see what would happen next, barely daring to breathe. After a beat, Alex pulled his hand away, and glanced back up at the sky. He smiled and chuckled again as if he was just continuing to trail off from their previous laughter and no _intense eye contact_ had ever occurred.

It couldn’t have lasted more than a second or two, but the whiplash of the whole interaction was making Ty’s head spin.

_What just happened?_

“It’s cold out here,” Alex shivered, sitting up.

“Um, yeah,” Ty managed to respond, “Don’t know why I thought we could swim this time of year.”

Ty was still trying to get back on kilter. He tried to think of a way to keep things going, to see if he could get a grip on what was going on in Alex’s head right now, but he was drawing a blank.

“I think I’ll head back in,” Alex shrugged, and he started standing to leave.

Grabbing his empty can, Ty jumped to his feet, feeling helpless as they exited the beach.

Ty had _just_ made peace with his feelings for Alex. Sure, he’d still get little twinges now and then, but it felt like he was finally getting his footing, and wasn’t letting it get in his way anymore. Their friendship was starting to feel back to its old self from almost a year ago… And now this.

It _had_ to be a normal… friendship… gaze? Ty was not going to let himself think anything else. He couldn’t. Any other line of thought was not worth the inevitable stress and pain.

Alex paused to rest his elbows on the stone bridge as they crossed it. Ty hung back as Alex leaned out over the water.

“Did you know there’s salmon in the river in the fall?”

Ty laughed, the humor in what Alex had said interrupting his spinning thoughts.

“ _Alex._ ”

“What?”

“This is the fifth fall you’ve told me that.”

“Oh. Really?”

Ty could tell a mile off Alex was just trying to play it cool, and Ty’s restraint was suddenly overpowered by an idea that he really, really, wished had not come to mind.

“Alex?”

“Yeah?”

“Do you want me to catch you some salmon?”

“Oh, um… only if you want,” Alex shrugged, clearly still trying to seem nonchalant.

“All right. I’ll make you salmon for dinner then.”

There was absolutely no reason he should be ignoring the part of his brain telling him this was definitely a bad idea and exactly the opposite of what he should be doing.

“Couldn’t say no to that,” Alex grinned, cocking an eyebrow.

“Good,” Ty grinned back.

He took out his fly box and inspected the contents to see if he had any flies on him already they could use for salmon. Ty’s muscle memory took over as he knotted a fly to the line, and it only took a few casts to catch a decent-sized salmon.

“Want to eat up at the farm?”

He shouldn’t have said it. An hour ago, it would have been a completely normal, casual, doable hangout. But now when the words left his mouth, there was an erratic staccato in Ty’s chest, and he found himself hoping Alex said yes – if they could just get more time alone, maybe he could figure out what _that look_ had been about.

Alex’s mouth twisted and he looked away.

“Um… I don’t know.”

Ty’s heart tightened the slightest bit in disappointment, but before he could respond, Alex continued.

“I don’t think I’d be able to make it all the way up there with just my crutches. Why don’t I stop by my house, and I can grab my wheelchair?”

Ty was playing with fire and he knew it.

Okay, _but_ , maybe this wasn’t unsalvageable. He just needed to spend this evening observing and confirming that everything was all good and platonic between them. Show his tiny overzealous gay brain that there was no evidence for anything but that.

Ty used almost the entire duration of the trek up to the farm quieting his brain, stamping down the confusion and curiosity and doubt churning his stomach. He was going to cook dinner, and he was going to act _normal_ while he did it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I always felt like Alex’s fall dialogue about the salmon was just a thinly veiled “what if you… made me salmon for dinner... aha ha, just kidding... unless..?”


	20. Hook

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Additional Chapter Tags: mild ableist language.

Alex sat at Ty’s kitchen table. The smells of dinner cooking wafting through the expansive kitchen were starting to replace the smell of gutting fish. Alex had run out of tasks he could help with from where he was, so he sat and listened to the pleasant background chatter of Ty talking about the farm while buzzing around the kitchen.

Being around Ty the last few days was so different from his visceral memories of the sickening nerves Alex would feel with girls he was crushing on growing up. Now all he felt was fluttering warmth, curiosity, that magnetic pull stronger than it ever had been.

He kept finding himself noticing things about Ty. Some things, Alex now realized, he’d _definitely_ noticed before and _probably_ should have picked up on as some sort of attraction – like the familiarity of the movement of back muscles and the flex of biceps through Ty’s shirt; the way he pushed his hair off his forehead with the back of his hand; the curve of the back of his neck. Other things Alex didn’t think he had really paid much attention to before, like the way Ty seemed to do everything with a steady, practiced hand, or how he couldn’t pinpoint exactly why, but there was just something about Ty keeping a tea towel slung over his shoulder the whole time he was cooking?

“Sorry, the kale has to be from frozen because it’s out of season, but everything else is fresh,” Ty was saying as he added pinches of seasonings to various pans on the stove.

Alex shrugged. “Well, it’s still from your farm, so it’s gotta be great either way, bro.”

_Why_ had he added a ‘bro’ at the end? Had he thought it was somehow _too gay_ to compliment Ty’s farm in a way that a strategically placed ‘ _bro’_ could fix?

“Aw, thanks, _bro_.”

Ty was grinning a little too widely with a dangerous glint in his eye. _Yoba._

“Shut up, it just came out.”

“Nah, it’s cool, bro.”

“I’m not talking to you anymore.”

“I’m, uh, almost done here, bro, if you want to set these utensils out,” Ty cheerfully continued.

Alex rolled his eyes, but couldn’t help smiling a little as he came over to grab forks and knives from Ty. He couldn’t even be annoyed or embarrassed with how close to practically gleeful Ty was right now.

“You’re a dork.”

Ty flicked off the burners and piled food onto plates.

“All right, that’s everything!” Ty announced.

They finished setting the table and settled in opposite each other.

Neither of them was particularly small (Ty was a respectable six foot even, but Alex still had a few inches on him), and when they were both seated at the little table, their limbs seemed to take up a comical amount of space. There was almost no way to avoid contact. If Alex’s elbows were on the table, their hands were practically bumping into each other, and it seemed impossible for neither knee to be touching another knee at the same time as neither foot touching another foot.

Ty had _built_ practically everything in this house, why didn’t he just make a bigger table? Or buy one from Robin – there was no way Ty was hurting for cash with how massive his farm was these days.

Alex desperately tried not to think about it and made himself fit into as small a footprint as possible.

As they passed the salt and pepper between each other, Ty’s knuckles inadvertently grazed Alex’s, and it took considerable willpower for Alex to ignore the contact and not completely melt into himself.

Alex took a bite of salmon and the soft, buttery texture and unexpectedly flavorful mix of herbs and spices put all other thoughts out of his mind.

“Woah, this isn’t the same recipe Gus uses, is it?”

“I tweaked it a little,” Ty shrugged.

“I thought it tasted different. This,” he pointed to the plate, “Is amazing.”

Ty laughed. “Thanks!”

Alex took another bite. He noticed their hands had become dangerously close again. Ty’s hands seemed like they’d be rough. And strong. But gentle. Alex must have been in direct contact with them dozens of times since they’d met, so he should know.

“Oh wait – did you get some of the lemon?” Ty held out a lemon wedge to Alex.

Maybe it was because he had been spacing out over _Ty’s hands_ , but as Alex attempted to take it from Ty, his body decided to forget his right hand did not function very well as the dominant hand anymore. When Alex tried to grab the piece of lemon, he instead managed to hit the piece of lemon out of Ty’s hand and onto the table.

“Oops.”

Alex switched hands and made to reach for it again, but midway, felt an impulse to reach out and take Ty’s hand instead. For a fleeting second, closing the distance between them felt urgent and irresistible, and then it was gone.

Alex realized he had been practically staring at Ty’s hands, and pried his eyes away to look back up, and – oh. That was definitely a mistake. Ty was looking right at him with a searching look that felt like catching the full impact of a bullet pass he wasn’t prepared for.

Wow, Ty was _very attractive._ Alex tried not to let his eyes linger on the curves and planes of Ty’s nose, his jawline, his cheekbones…

Alex worked to make his breathing stay as even and normal as possible as he tried to recall what he had been doing before he had gotten _so distracted_ , but then he saw something else in Ty’s expression, and Alex’s next inhale caught a little. He was familiar with that look.

It was attraction – unmistakably (he could still remember a time when he used to see it often on girls’ faces). And then, a barely perceptible shift in Ty’s eyes – recognition – and Alex was sure they both knew exactly what the other was thinking – where they both stood.

Ty knew. And Alex knew it. And Alex knew, and Ty knew it.

But the urge to reach for Ty’s hand had disappeared and now he was completely frozen. Like the first time he tried to jump off the diving board as a little kid, standing at the edge for minutes on end, not being able to convince himself to jump into the pool. He’d felt too impossibly high up – how long would he be feeling that sensation of falling through the air, and would it hurt when he hit the water, and what if he couldn’t find the edge of the pool or somewhere he could touch the bottom?

He couldn’t do it.

Alex looked away and rubbed the back of his head in frustration. He felt like he should say something. Apologize? Completely change the subject again like nothing had happened?

Ty blinked. “Oh, um, It’s okay.”

Alex looked down, and Ty was holding out the lemon wedge again.

“Here.”

Oh, yeah. Dropping it felt like ten minutes ago.

Alex looked back up at Ty, who calmly set the lemon on the edge of Alex’s plate like Alex wasn’t being incredibly, conspicuously, ridiculous right now.

“Thanks,” Alex said.

He knew their words weren’t just about that (stupid) lemon. Ty wasn’t mad that Alex had chickened out. It felt like an acknowledgement. That Ty knew it hadn’t been a ‘no’… more a ‘not yet’; but Ty would still be there. He would wait for Alex to catch up.

When Ty was focused on his meal again, Alex couldn’t help but smile a little. Even if nothing happened, it didn’t _feel_ like nothing.

If anything made sense, which it definitely did not right now, the rest of the evening should have been unbearably awkward. Maybe it was the length of time Alex had spent militantly overlooking his attraction before, but after the moment of tension was over, it didn’t take long before they just picked up where they left off. They did the dishes. Turned on the TV. Lazily discussed gridball.

It was way past sundown by the time were wrapping up.

“Thanks for doing all this,” Alex said.

“No problem. I had fun.”

“It _was_ actually pretty fun.”

Ty pretended to take offense. “What do you mean _‘actually’_?”

“Nah, just that I‘m not usually too big on cooking or fishing,” Alex laughed. “When I was a little kid I used to get so bored when my mom and dad took me to fish with them. It was just bait on a hook, and then they sat around for hours.”

“Fly fishing is way better.”

“Having someone who can actually catch fish and then cook it for you is way better.”

“Guess that probably helps,” Ty smirked, and Alex did not care that he was smiling back harder than this conversation in any way warranted.

Passing through the lamps along the dirt path from the farm, with their fluttering halos of moths, Alex was brimming over with possibility, still unable to get the smile to leave his face.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “The lemon spritz makes it special.” 😏
> 
> Thank you, I love you all, see you next week hopefully!


	21. Wishbone

When Alex had finally left for the night, all Ty could do for several minutes was stand rooted to the spot where he had closed the front door behind Alex on his way out. Ty held on to the feelings of simultaneous panic and excitement that buzzed through him, resisting anything that might interrupt the thrumming anticipation. He didn’t want to start analyzing it, just wanted to believe it really happened.

He was starting to feel lightheaded and sat down on the couch.

That really happened, didn’t it? Ty was almost _certain_ he was not misreading Alex’s face this time. Alex wanted him back. Ty smiled. He was just sitting on the couch grinning, completely alone in his house, and he didn’t even care.

How long had this been going on? Unless Alex was _really_ good at hiding it when he liked someone (which… didn’t seem likely), Ty was sure he would have noticed if Alex had feelings for him before now: Ty was still a work in progress with trying not to notice all the little things Alex said and did. Though it didn’t take infatuation-sharpened perceptive skills to notice that Alex had been _kind of a wreck_ for a minute there at dinner. It had to have been recent then, Ty decided.

So, this must be the first time Alex liked another guy. Well _that_ had to be a supremely confusing time, especially adding it to the pile of everything else that had happened to Alex so far this year.

Ty hoped he didn’t need to worry about how Alex was dealing with all this. He caught himself feeling guilty for being the one Alex had feelings for, because it essentially eliminated Ty as an option for Alex to talk to about learning he was into guys. Except, no, that was bullshit, obviously: Alex had plenty of other people to talk to about this. And knowing Alex talked to Sebastian about the more intense stuff in his life was reassuring as well.

Ty walked around the room looking for something for his hands to do, but the housework was already all done for the day, so all he could think to do was move one of his potted plants from one end of the room to the other before sitting back down.

It felt like he should have a better idea of what to do next given that there were admittedly… more than a few times Ty had ended up daydreaming about what he might do if Alex wanted to kiss him… wanted to hold hands… wanted to go out with him… (wanted to fuck him…). About four years of fantasy made thinking about the reality a little intimidating. But it was clear Alex wasn’t quite ready to bring anything fully into reality yet. How they had left things, the ball was really in Alex’s court. Or whatever suitable gridball metaphor Alex would have supplied… Ty just had to figure out how to be encouraging while letting Alex take the lead. (Definitely not the time to be pushy.)

A flood of excitement washed through him again. Nothing was certain, but it didn’t matter right now when the infinite possibilities were still out there and some of those possibilities brought him a little closer to things he’d thought he’d only ever get to dream about.

Ty stood up again, and just to stop himself from pacing around the house, vibrating out of his skin, he grabbed his jacket and a lantern and hiked out to the pier over the forest lake.

He sat cross-legged on the edge of the pier with his head in his hands, just letting every wave of thoughts and feelings break over him. The air stung at his cheeks and fingers. It was conspicuously still and silent compared to the clamor of hundreds of crickets, cicadas, frogs, and blinking fireflies in the summer. The sound of Marnie’s door opening and closing and footsteps crunching across dead leaves and frozen grass carried all the way over to the pond.

The footsteps stopped before they hit the wood of the pier.

“Everything okay?” Shane’s voice came from behind him.

“Yes,” Ty smiled to himself. “I guess it is. Just a lot.”

“Wanna talk?”

“Um… Not yet.” Ty twisted around to see Shane standing there in pajamas. “But maybe soon. Thanks for checking on me though.” There wasn’t anything he could say that wasn’t inextricably tangled with things that weren’t his to share.

Shane nodded.

“Want company then?”

“Yeah.”

They sat side by side and Ty shut off the lantern. Above, they could see the backdrop of the milky way glowing behind piercingly bright, countless stars. Pelican Town was in a remote enough part of Ferngill that even the light from Zuzu City didn’t mute the night sky. This view always reminded Ty of visiting his Grandfather as a kid. There were never as many stars in the city, even on the clearest nights. This was the only spot Ty had ever been able to see the milky way, and when he was little, he’d thought it only existed in the sky over the Valley, like it belonged to this part of the world alone.

Ty breathed in the sharp night air of late fall that was cold in a way you could almost smell, and let it out slowly. It wasn’t something he’d permit himself any extended period of time, but, for tonight, he’d let himself be optimistic. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Back on my bullshit of writing 500 words of internal dialogue for every one in-world action :)
> 
> A shortie this week - next chapter is a lot longer, so may not get it done by next week, but we'll see. :) <3


	22. Fantasy Gridball

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Additional chapter tags: pining >:)
> 
> No idea how this got so long, but hope the length of the chapter makes up for the length of my absence.

Alex could see the tiny pixelated cowboy, and he could see the tiny pixelated aliens – or whatever they were – following him, and his brain could tell what direction he _should_ be going in. Run away, point and shoot. But his fingers didn’t seem too sure what his brain wanted them to do with that information. It seemed like a full two seconds before they figured out – oh, right, move the thumbs.

The aliens were still closing the distance, though, and Sebastian and Ty were all the way across the screen in their own mess of enemies to take care of. Alex willed his little cowboy to walk faster and tried to avoid the barriers in the middle of the screen he always got stuck in. He risked a quick glance up at the time bar at the top of the screen. It seemed like it had barely moved at all.

Alex managed to shoot his pursuer and the other one behind it before his thumb slipped off its joystick and the next alien in line got him.

Opening and closing his hands a few times to loosen the building stiffness, Alex’s mind came out of its focus on the game and back into awareness of his surroundings. He set down the controller and settled deeper into the beanbag he was planted in in Ty’s living room (possibly permanently, depending on what his body decided to do in the next few hours).

“Seb! Grab the thing! Grab the smoke bomb!” Ty was almost shouting.

“I’m going, I’m going!”

Ty and Sebastian, Alex had quickly realized, were _very_ good at this game – what was it? Something about a King? Whatever – the Cowboy King game. Alex had heard Ty talk about it before, but hadn’t been aware of how just how into it he was. Clearly both Ty and Sebastian had logged many, many hours on this with how deftly they maneuvered around the screen, and how they always knew what was coming next and the best time to use each of the many different weapons Alex could never seem to tell apart.

Alex, on the other hand, was pretty dismally bad at it. He didn’t really mind, though. He wasn’t much of a video game person in the first place, and it was hard to get invested in a game enough to actually get frustrated by it when he was constantly dying. And he liked this little cowboy game better than the Junimo Cart one, where the lag of his reflexes and coordination was literally ranked next to Ty’s and Sebastian’s on the screen. With all three of them playing together, the Cowboy King game let his deficits fly under the radar a little more. Though if he didn’t think about it, sometimes his hands picked up some muscle memory and just did exactly what his brain was thinking (even if it was usually a slower, heavy-handed version). And whenever he did manage to hit any of the aliens it felt like he was contributing to passing to the next level without holding everyone else back.

So, whenever he burned through the last of his lives, he was fine to just sit back and watch and let his mind wander.

And it usually wandered to Ty…

Alex had been worried about meeting up with Ty and Sebastian today, unsure of what to expect. Things hadn’t been weird after their dinner together two days ago, but what if it was this time? Would it be different since Sebastian was going to be there? What if in the meantime Ty realized it was _Alex_ he had some kind of feelings for and remembered all of the highly unflattering situations he had seen Alex in lately and changed his mind?

Alex had also spent the last two days hanging out with Haley, which would have been nice if he hadn’t spent the entire time going back and forth on whether or not to tell Haley that he liked guys and if he _did_ , whether to also tell her that he liked Ty. He felt guilty for not saying anything, like he was keeping secrets from her for no reason other than his own cowardice. He’d gone in so many anxious circles about it in his head that the minute he was alone again in his room last night, he’d given himself another panic attack.

But as soon as Ty greeted him at the door, all that disappeared, like waking up in the morning and the last night’s fears suddenly seeming insignificant in the daylight. Being around Ty was just as reassuring and comforting in its steady familiarity as it always was. It was easy now to remember – oh yeah, this was Ty, his friend of over four years, who frequently sought him out to spend time with him and actually seemed to like hanging out with him. Ty, who had known him back when he was a gridball-obsessed little jerk walking around with absolutely no filter or self-awareness, who had seen him cry on far too many occasions, who had been there at the hospital when Alex still needed nurses to wipe his ass, who had stuck around through being ignored for several weeks, who watched Alex awkwardly and entirely unintentionally broadcast his crush on him – and who still invited Alex over to his house today despite all that.

Yoba, Ty had really been more patient with him than Alex really deserved.

And it felt like Ty would keep being patient with him while he figured out how to be more-than-friends as an adult – with his current wildly unreliable body and emotional state – with one of his best friends – with a guy.

That was something Alex was still puzzling over. He still wasn’t sure he completely understood how his attraction to guys worked yet. How much different would it really be from liking and dating girls anyway? Alex had already been through all the magazines in his room trying to figure out what things he was attracted to in guys – were they similar to what (he thought) he liked in women? Did he have a type? Sometimes he would take his time considering the models or athletes on each page, and sometimes he found himself flipping through with a restless urgency – did he think that guy was hot? How about this guy?

The answer seemed to be ‘yes,’ in a general sense, but there wasn’t much to go on. They all looked so similar, it ended up not being a terribly enlightening exercise.

Lingering on his attraction to Ty was much more gratifying; unlike the magazines, it didn’t raise more questions than it answered.

So, Alex watched as Ty played, noticing how he would get louder and less coherent the more he got sucked into the game, just like he did when they were watching gridball together. He watched as Ty pressed his lips into a thin line in concentration during a lull in the action. As he pushed up the sleeves of the bright quarter-zip jacket he was wearing zipped all the way up to his chin that somehow looked cool on him.

When Ty and Sebastian finally ran through the last of their lives and started up the game again. Alex decided to sit back this run to give his hands a break and let Ty and Sebastian get in a few more unencumbered rounds without him.

_Not_ because he wanted more time to creep on his friend. Okay, maybe.

Alex wondered if he should feel guilty about it, but then, as the title faded to black (ah, yes, _Journey of the Prairie King_ , he knew that…), Ty shot a look back at him that was so fast Alex almost didn’t catch it, the barest hint of a smile at the edge of his mouth.

It kept happening; Ty risking his game on quick conspiratorial glances back at Alex out of the corner of his eye. Each sudden bolt of eye contact set off his heart rate and made his head all floaty. He hoped he wasn’t actually blushing as much as it felt like he was.

Alex wanted to jump in headfirst, wanted to go as slowly as possible, wanted Ty to make the first move, wanted to take everything back and go back to normal… and right now, really wanted very much just to find out what it was like to kiss him.

In the past Alex had rarely questioned his actions. As a quarterback, he had needed to make snap decisions affecting a whole team of players all the time. Alex had been good at winging it, shaping disparate details into a clear picture and committing to a play.

But all that seemed to freeze up by the end of high school, once the decisions started to mean more than just which girl he was dating and whether he would try out for baseball, or how to get the team to the next stage in the playoffs. When it came to his actual _life_ , he had switched off and just gone with whatever direction he had happened to be pointing. Now he wasn’t pointed in any direction, and there wasn’t any playbook he could go off of.

Frustration flashed through Alex for a split second – he was _tired_ of waiting around for the things he wanted. That’s not who he wanted to be anymore.

Okay. He was going to do this. Alex liked Ty; Ty liked him: he was going to _do_ something about it.

As Sebastian and Ty were starting up a new round, Ty turned to Alex, offering the controller Alex had set on the floor.

“Want to play another round?”

Alex thought he could keep playing all day if it meant he could… those eyes… Yeah.

_(Yoba_ , how had he thought he was straight for so long?)

Alex took the controller from Ty.

“Yeah, sure,” he replied, and set to mentally preparing himself for more alien shooting, hoping he was able to multitask enough to appreciate the way their elbows were almost touching.

***

Their arms weren’t touching, but it was tangible how close together they were. It sent goosebumps running up Ty’s arm.

There were times Ty would forget about his raging crush, and they’d just be two friends hanging out. But that was becoming increasingly impossible as the day went on. He was literally savoring the feeling of their arms _not_ touching right now for fuck’s sake.

Ty had self-imposed a reset period of two days of not seeing Alex so he could cool off and go into their next interaction with a clear head. By the time Alex arrived at the farm that afternoon for their designated Structured Friendship Activity Time, his head was definitely no clearer, but Ty at least felt more confident he wasn’t going to immediately black out from the tension the second Alex stepped foot in the house.

He’d been curious about how it would be around Alex now. Would it be easier now that Ty knew – or was, like, ninety-eight percent sure – that Alex felt the same way he did? Or would it be like waiting for the last hour of the workday to pass when he worked at Joja, so tantalizingly close but unbearably out of reach?

Ty reminded himself that it could be a long time before anything ever happened between him and Alex. He needed to be prepared for this to be a marathon. Not that anything was going to _happen_ with Sebastian there. So far, the afternoon had mostly been focused on Journey of the Prairie King.

Well. Sebastian had been focused on Prairie King.

Gaming wasn’t really Alex’s thing, but he was being a good sport about it. And Ty was… making an honest attempt. Usually this was his game. He and Sebastian were on the high score leaderboards on Journey of the Prairie King the arcade machine in Pelican Town as well as at no less than three different Zuzu City arcades. They could get a little competitive with their high scores on the machine in the Saloon (though both Abby and Shane were actually starting to catch up to them), so it was nice to play a little cooperative multiplayer mode.

Ty tried to pull himself together in the few seconds it took for his player character to regenerate with its last life. The previous life got used up because he’d forgotten to look back up at the screen when Alex was setting his controller down again after blowing through all his lives and Ty’s eyes had fallen to Alex’s hand, his wrist, traveled up to the space where his neck and jawbone met–

Right. Which he wasn’t going to do again. Because he was playing this game.

Sebastian was flanked by orcs on each side and Ty skirted around the enemies that were closing in on him to help take down some of the orcs threatening Sebastian. They both breathed a sigh of relief when the next room opened and they could pass on to the next level.

“Okay. Boss fight,” Sebastian said, eyebrows furrowing as he steeled himself for the impending confrontation.

(Was Ty allowed to readjust the way he was sitting, purely for comfort’s sake of course, and then definitely incidentally end up with their arms actually touching a little bit?)

_(Was Alex allowed to readjust the way_ he _was sitting and then end up with their arms actually touching holy shit?!)_

And that was the end of the boss round.

Sebastian looked at him with a resigned sort of acceptance that Ty was just going to play shit today. Ty tried to look apologetic, but… He was, at this moment, in _direct physical contact_ with _Alex_ – and not in an accidental _or_ ostensibly heterosexual way.

“Okay, I need to get out of this beanbag,” Alex said, and Ty immediately felt the cool absence as Alex moved his arm away.

“Yeah, I could use a break,” Sebastian said rolling his neck and shoulders and standing. “I can shave your head now if you want.”

“That works,” Alex shrugged. He grabbed his crutches off the floor beside him and angled himself forward to stand before pausing, mouth quirked, mental calculations written on his face.

Sebastian extended an arm to offer a hand up, bemused at Alex’s predicament.

Alex caved. “Okay, but _don’t_ pull my right arm.”

Sebastian gave Alex a hand up then grabbed the clippers he’d brought for this purpose. After the two of them disappeared into the bathroom, Ty tried to play a solo round of Prairie King, but his head just wasn’t in it today. He got up and peered out the window, mapping out in his head what fenceposts needed mending soon, calming himself with deep breaths, concentrating on the tight sensation of over-full lungs on the inhale.

Alex and Sebastian finally returned from the bathroom, Alex’s freshly shaven head looking sharp in contrast with the fuzzy fluff it had started growing into. He flopped back down onto the beanbag again and stretched out his legs.

Ty sat back down next to him. “Oh, hey, Alex. Did you… do something different with your hair?” Ty said innocently, taking the opportunity to bring up ancient history he hadn’t given Alex a hard time about in ages.

Alex knocked his shoe against Ty’s in retaliation with a wry smile, and Ty bumped his foot back in return before even registering the exchange.

Fuck, was Alex _flirting_ with him?

Ty might actually immediately catch on fire.

“That was the worst attempt at a Southern accent I’ve ever heard,” Alex returned, failing at looking annoyed. He turned his attention back to the TV and began flipping through the game settings to start up another round.

Then Ty saw Sebastian looking between him and Alex before eyeing Ty with a scrutinizing stare. Uh oh. Ty gave the slightest shake of his head to discourage him from any potential probing questions just yet. Sebastian shot him another squint to make sure Ty knew that Sebastian suspected there was something afoot, but left it alone.

“All right,” Sebastian sighed with the grimness of a weary sergeant leading his section into battle, “Are you two clowns ready for another absolute massacre?”

“Of us or them?” Alex grinned.

They continued playing a few more rounds, each as terrible as the last. Sebastian seemed to be keeping an eye on him and Alex, though, clearly trying to work out what was going on between them.

_Look, Sebastian. We’re delicately walking the line of homoerotic tension between friends and more-than-friends until all of us figure out our sexuality and if we’re ready for a relationship right now, okay? It’s not that deep._

“I need a smoke,” Sebastian said finally, standing up and fishing a pack of cigarettes out of his hoodie pocket. “Actually, I’m probably gonna head out soon. Got band practice tomorrow, so I don’t wanna burn out on people and disappear for the next week. Solarian Chronicles Friday?” he directed to Ty as he tapped a cigarette out of the pack.

“Yep, I’ll be there!”

“I think I’ll head out, too,” Alex said. He stretched an arm out to Sebastian, soliciting another hand up.

“You couldn’t get out of that the first time, why did you even sit in it again?” Sebastian gestured at Alex, sunken comically deep into the beanbag, with halfhearted exasperation.

“It’s comfy!” Alex said in defense.

Sebastian tucked his cigarette behind his ear and pulled Alex up for a second time.

Ty was almost relieved at the prospect of being alone again with how intense the day had been.

“See you around,” Alex called before disappearing out the door. Sebastian followed, retrieving the cigarette and pausing to give Ty one more analyzing stare over his shoulder under the guise of lighting up his cigarette.

As soon as the door shut behind him, Ty pressed the heels of his hands into his eye sockets and let out a long exhale-turned-whinge-turned-groan in expression of every cloudy thought and emotion and sensation that crowded out any ability to be a coherent being right now. He was sure he wasn’t going to be able to get Alex out of his head all night.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Flirt with your crush… by roasting them 24/7 >:)
> 
> I struggled hardcore with this chapter… Posting it at an unreasonable hour because I need it to be gone. Thank you all for patiently waiting while I got my head on straight (or straight-er anyway) about this fic for a bit. Hopefully I’ll be posting the next chapter next week, but it’s also highly probable I will spend a great deal of time thinking that one over as well. 😊 Stay tuned! 🥰
> 
> (I’ll be honest, I’ve made it to the second room in Journey to the Prairie King and that is all… I am awful at it, though maybe it’s harder on Switch than on PC? That's what I'll tell myself. But I beat Demontower twice in Night in the Woods, so, I’m okay resting on those laurels tbh)


	23. Fourth-Quarter Comeback

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Additional chapter tags: oh, you know: pining, fluff… a tiny bit of angst… :)

Ty didn’t manage to get much done that day other than starting on fixing fenceposts before the ground froze over for winter. It was only the day after their Journey of the Prairie King session, but Ty was already craving more time with Alex.

He didn’t even know what to do with himself: he was still being driven to distraction thinking about how _Alex_ had wanted to _touch his arm_. Yoba help him if Alex ever wanted to do more than that… Arm-to-arm contact through multiple layers of clothing should not get him worked up this much. (He wasn’t even lacking human touch enough to use that as an excuse, with the number of friends he had that didn’t hold back on physical affection. It was just pure, unbridled infatuation he was running on here.)

The moment there was a lull in the afternoon’s work, Ty quickly convinced himself that he should check the community board to see if there were any new requests. And if he _happened_ to see Alex while he was out… That wouldn’t be terrible…

The way Alex’s head snapped up and his face brightened when he saw it was Ty coming up the path told him he needn’t have bothered coming up with such a flimsy excuse. Alex was camped outside Dusty’s pen, and Ty was feeling especially sappy seeing him in this golden late-afternoon light, bundled up, nose a little red from being out in the cold.

“Hey, you know what I realized?” Alex beamed as Ty reached him, without introduction.

“What?” Ty’s heartbeat was already taking off at the sound of his voice.

“So, like, instead of trying to swim in the ocean and freezing to death before we hit the water…?”

“Yeah?”

“The spa.”

“Oh. Wow. Probably should have been able to come up with that…” It felt a little ridiculous that that had never crossed their minds.

“I mean, it’s not the same as the beach,” Alex shrugged, “but it’s been _way_ too long since I’ve been swimming.”

“We going now?”

“Yeah, you need to borrow board shorts or anything?”

“No, I have some in my backpack.”

“Of _course_ you do,” Alex said in amused exasperation, “Because it’s three days before winter.”

“Well, I need them now, don’t I?”

Alex raised an eyebrow back at him. “All right, come on, let’s go.”

The sky was on the edge of turning into a sunset, and the leafless skeleton-trees were black against the fading afternoon light of almost-winter.

They made their slow way uphill without much conversation. There was a quiet anticipation between them that Ty was afraid to think about too directly. Every few paces Ty would become aware again of what was happening right now and his proximity to Alex and that they were currently treading somewhere close to more-than-friends and his stomach would plummet down like he’d just missed a stair.

Ty was grateful to get out of the cold and into the heat of the water by the time they made it to the spa. When he finally sunk into the warm pool, Ty let out a long exhale. He always forgot how relaxing it was up here, and made a mental note to try to remember to come more often.

The sharp chlorine smell and the surface tension of the water on his skin pulled him out of his head and back down to earth. Ty decided to ignore his churning head and just let it all fall away for now – whatever was going to happen would happen.

Alex lowered himself in after Ty.

“ _I_ am a genius,” he sighed with a contented groan as he closed his eyes and sat back against the bench lining the side of the pool.

“Mm,” Ty agreed, and pushed off backwards toward the pool’s center.

Ty floated on his back, arms spread wide. The warmth soaked into his skin, and he drifted for a few minutes like that. Greenish light danced on the ceiling, and every sound made an eerie echo off the tile floors and walls. Ty watched the faintest wisps of steam curl up around him.

He looked up to find out what Alex was getting up to and saw him still sitting at the edge of the pool, looking in Ty’s direction. ~~~~

“You coming?” Ty called.

Alex hesitated, then shook his head. “I don’t know if I can.”

Ty thought it _might_ have been helpful for Alex to have told him that _before_ getting into the water. He swam back over to Alex to keep him company on the bench, but Alex was already pushing himself up to standing. He steadied himself on the edge of the pool.

“Hold on, I want to try something. Spot me?”

Against his better judgement, Ty nodded, and Alex experimented with floating on his back. Ty’s hands hovered behind just in case, too focused on the task to think of it as anything more than that. It was a wobbly start, but once Alex was confident that he could right himself if he started sinking or drifting, they floated together, side by side, staring up at the ceiling.

They floated and swam and glided through the water aimlessly, moving away from each other, but somehow always back next to each other within a few minutes. Now and then limbs brushed against each other inadvertently, and each one was a terrifying-wonderful rush. Ty was completely unaware of time passing, submerged in the moment until the cavernous room became the entire world.

He pushed off from the edge of the pool, propelling himself underwater along its bottom, taking the time to enjoy the encapsulating sensation of the warm water pressing around him as he was submerged. When he came up for air, he startled, almost colliding with Alex resurfacing at the same time.

The way they were standing, at an angle from each other, their shoulders were almost touching. Alex was looking back at him out of the corner of his eye, his face expressionless as he caught his breath. Water rolled off his skin in little rivulets. Ty stood still where he was. He felt frozen in Alex’s stare; his head emptied itself of all thoughts, and all he could do was watch the movement of Alex’s chest and wait to see what would happen next.

Then Alex turned toward him. They were face to face. Ty felt his breathing become shallow and he had to resist the urge to swallow as his mouth suddenly became dry.

Alex was just… right there in front of him, chest-deep in the water. He was making that face again, looking straight into Ty’s eyes, completely absorbed and forgetting the world. His irises barely perceptibly flickered between Ty’s eyes.

And then Ty saw Alex’s eyes flick downward, _definitely to his mouth_ , and Ty swore his heart almost shorted out.

With what felt like the slowest of slow motions, Alex was leaning in. His hand was on Ty’s forearm. Their noses were an inch apart and Alex paused for a beat and glanced down to Ty’s mouth and up again. Ty was beginning to worry that the likelihood of him passing out right here and drowning in the bathhouse was getting dangerously high – and then – finally, after what felt like another entire four years of waiting – their lips met.

For a second Ty was terrified of making any movements – if he alerted Alex to what was happening, it might scare him off. But four years’ pent-up pining wouldn’t let him hold back, and he was kissing Alex, too.

At first it was soft and cautious. Ty tasted chlorine, and could feel Alex’s breath on his skin, and Alex’s hands were on his waist. He hesitantly reached his hands up to either side of Alex’s face, still unsure if he could trust himself to do this right.

Ty opened his eyes, needing to see Alex’s reaction to all this, and any fears he might have had immediately disappeared, because Alex looked so engrossed and intent and tender as he began another slow kiss, so soft against Ty’s mouth, that Ty instinctively melted right into it.

Alex’s eyes opened as if he felt Ty staring. (There were so many more different shades and flecks of color in the deep browns and greens of his eyes than Ty had ever been able to see before.) Alex’s lips tightened against Ty’s into a smile, though he was still kissing through it. It was relieving that Alex seemed so sure right now. Ty was smiling back, a little in disbelief, unable to help himself. They laughed in their awkwardness, teeth clashing, barely able to keep kissing through their inability to keep a straight face until he felt Alex relax against him and they seamlessly slid back into rhythm.

For a second Ty almost felt too overwhelmingly close, too intense – _Alex_ was letting him do this? And how was he the one that was such a bundle of nerves right now? And then just as suddenly Ty needed to be impossibly closer, deeper, and pushed back needily into their next kiss. ~~~~

Finally, they paused, catching their breath, foreheads still touching. Ty found Alex’s hands and tangled their fingers together. Alex hadn’t pulled away or said this was all a mistake in this whole time. He was still there. And he was squeezing Ty’s hands back.

 _“_ Wow,” Alex breathed, his lips still barely brushing Ty’s “I wasn’t sure you felt the same way.”

“Seriously? I thought I was being obvious,” Ty laughed.

Alex’s mouth quirked in a soft smile, “Me too.”

“Well,” Ty said, tilting his head back to look at Alex, “I mean, that time on the beach I was pretty sure… And then with the lemon thing it was kind of obvious.”

Alex visibly reddened at that. “Yoba, I- wait, the beach? What happened at the beach?”

“Oh. You just… made a- a face.”

“A face?” Alex cringed. “Do I want to know? Wait, actually, can we sit first?”

Leading Ty by the hands, Alex brought them over to the bench.

Ty had forgotten if there was something he was supposed to be answering as soon as they sat down. Alex leaned back against the pool’s edge and turned back to Ty, his (stupidly, annoyingly attractive) face bright and open, and it took a second before Ty could breathe.

“Can I kiss you again?” Ty was saying before his brain could catch up.

Alex arrived at Ty’s mouth before he’d even stopped nodding. He was pulling Ty in eagerly, their kisses taking on a more heated energy than before. Ty bit at Alex’s lower lip; felt the sweep of Alex’s tongue; gripped at Alex’s knee, probably too tightly; sighed into the sudden sharp sensation of Alex’s fist balling up in his hair.

Ty was surprised that Alex seemed to be as hungry for this as he was. And he had never imagined how warm and soft and sweet he could be at the same time as being… well, as… passionate... as he’d imagined as well.

When they finally broke apart, all Ty could do was keep smiling.

“You have no idea how long I’ve wanted to do that,” he confessed. ~~~~

“Really? How long?” Alex said, his expression overflowing with contentment.

“Oh. Um… basically since I moved here,” Ty said a little sheepishly, not having thought through that obviously his statement would provoke that exact question.

Alex seemed surprised. “Oh, wow.”

Ty tried not to be embarrassed by this reaction.

“I meant – I just never noticed,” Alex added. “You must think I’m really clueless,” he laughed drily, looking away.

“No,” Ty shook his head, “Not at all. I mean, I was _trying_ to hide that I liked you?”

Alex was tracing little shapes on his palm.

“No offense, but I really thought you were straight this whole time,” Ty said, words again escaping before he could consider if they should leave his head.

“Um. Well, me too actually.” Alex said, eyes meeting Ty’s again, then dropping back down to Ty’s hand.

“When did you realize?”

“I think I always knew, in a way? Or maybe only, like, a week? I don’t know, it doesn’t make sense.”

“Makes sense to me.”

Alex returned Ty’s hand to his lap and looked at him fully this time.

“I think even back when we first met, I… started having feelings for you? Only I didn’t really understand it. I’ve always been drawn to you, I guess. I don’t know. It was confusing… It never crossed my mind that I could have those kinds of feelings for another guy, so I just ignored it. And then, like, a week ago it just… all kind of hit me at once. But I think there was a part of me that always knew I liked guys. Yoba, it’s kind of embarrassing how hard I was trying not to think about it.”

Alex rubbed the back of his hair; he was starting to look upset and Ty could tell he was overthinking.

“You know, I was trying not to have feelings for a straight guy for four years. I could never get it to stick. For _four years_. Just think if you really were straight… I was actually getting pretty good at making myself see you as a friend up until you started throwing a wrench in it last week, you know,” Ty said, with a gentle elbow to Alex’s ribs.

Alex gave a small smile that just bordered on smug.

“Wow, we’re both dorks, aren’t we?”

“Just a little,” Ty said, and let the backs of his fingers graze up Alex’s arm. 

“How did it take us this long?”

Ty laughed.

He thought about how long it had seemed to take for him to build himself back up to being a person who wasn’t merely surviving, and how he had watched Alex slowly (and then all at once) come apart these last four years to let himself feel and talk about and want real things.

“I don’t think we’d ever have known how to be any faster.”

Alex’s eyes went soft as he smiled back at him, and Ty wondered if Alex was thinking the same things about the two of them.

“No, probably not.”

He leaned in like he couldn’t resist needing to be kissing Ty again. Ty couldn’t imagine getting used to seeing that expression on his face – or the idea that Alex really actually did want to kiss him. After a single kiss that managed to feel like the starting point of something new as much as it signaled a conclusion for now, Alex pulled back. 

“Okay. I _really_ hate to stop all this, but I need to head home; I can feel some major fatigue coming on.”

“Yeah, of course. What time is it even?”

“No idea,” Alex laughed breathlessly, and pulled himself up on the stair rail and out of the water.

Ty stepped out into the night air, the cold a shock against his cheeks. Being out here, outside the bubble of the spa, suddenly made it all feel more real.

He paused and looked up at the sky as he held the door for Alex to follow him out. There weren’t many stars visible tonight through the clouded sky.

Ty realized Alex had stopped beside him and was looking up at Ty pensively. Ty stuffed his hands in his pockets, self-conscious at being caught spacing out.

“So, do you want to come over tomorrow?” Ty asked. He was restraining himself from kicking at the gravel like a bashful child.

Their breath was visible, hanging in the air between them.

“Yeah,” Alex smiled. It was a new one Ty had never seen before: a mix of sweet, hopeful, keen, cautious. “Twelve?”

“That works,” Ty answered, anticipation already bubbling up from his stomach.

Ty and Alex started making their way back, and paused where the path through the backwoods met the Mountain Road. As Ty turned to split off down through the backwoods, Alex caught his hand and drew him down into one more kiss, full and lingering. Yoba, that boy could really be smooth as fuck when he wasn’t being a complete goof, Ty thought, as they went their separate ways for the night.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “You hear about how many fourth quarter comebacks that a guy has and I think it means a guy screwed up in the first three quarters.” – Peyton Manning.
> 
> Let's try a once every other week posting schedule and see how that goes? 
> 
> Thank you for reading and getting this far!


	24. First Down

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just some good-old-fashioned angst without plot.

Alex lay in bed, trying to sleep, but his heart was still racing. He kept replaying the last few hours in his head.

He had kissed Ty. He kissed a man. He kissed _Ty_. And Ty had kissed him back.

Maybe if he thought it enough times it would seem real. Or make sense that Ty seemed to want this as much as he did. Or make sense that it made sense.

But it did make sense.

It had been simultaneously softer and rougher than Alex was expecting. He hadn’t thought about how you would feel the stubble when kissing a guy, but it made obvious sense now.

His whole body felt light from the memory. Every bone and muscle and nerve ending was asking _when_ they’d get to be kissing Ty again. He had gotten to feel the roughness of Ty’s jaw, and his hands still felt a ghost of the sense memory of the warm, smooth expanse of Ty’s back under his fingertips. And Alex could remember all the times Ty was pressing closer to him, pulling him in, reaching out for him. They had been closer than they’d ever been before, finally bridging the gap between them that had somehow been as canyon-wide as it was imperceptibly small.

It was a new way of being wanted that left him feeling warm and secure, completely exposed, and a little in disbelief all at the same time.

Girls had wanted him for what they saw, and that was a good feeling, but back in high school, Alex had never let his guard down enough to feel like they really were dating him for _him._ Not that he was calling his past girlfriends shallow or anything – there probably wasn’t anyone who really _knew_ him back then, not even Haley. How could they if he never relaxed enough to let his guard down even with himself?

Alex kicked the blanket halfway off and rolled onto his back.

He stared up at the old Hanshaw poster that was still up on the wall despite him having retired from the Tunnelers going on seven years ago.

 _What_ am _I supposed to do tomorrow?_ he wondered.

The poster grinned back at him vacantly.

Alex sat up in the bed, grabbing a pillow and crossing his arms over it.

Making the decision to act on his feelings for Ty was one thing, but to be honest, he hadn’t really thought about what to do if they ever got to the point of actually kissing. Well, vaguely, the idea had been step one: kissing, step two: dating, which seemed embarrassingly simplistic right now. Alex had always been good at the getting-someone-to-date-you part. Less so with making them want to stick around. He really needed to get it right this time with Ty. So… what were you supposed to do to... do that?

Alex liked their friendship – hanging out with Ty; talking with him about anything, serious or silly; just being around him. Would it really be so hard to add in all the relationship stuff? Maybe it was harder than it seemed, though; he’d never dated anyone he’d been good friends with beforehand (Yoba, he was really starting to hate that his only frame of reference for dating was _high school_ ). Everyone always said relationships messed up friendships if they didn’t work out. But when Alex thought about it, it just felt so good, he had a hard time imagining not at least _trying_.

But a relationship was different than a friendship or a crush. Could he really ask Ty to date his broke, moody, ignorant, useless self? And who _knew_ what Ty wanted in any of this.

Alex sometimes worried he must seem countrified and old-fashioned next to Ty. Alex was the type to ask someone out at an over-the-top dinner date (and maybe he would have done that with Ty if he wasn’t so broke and everything wasn’t so upside-down in every part of his life). He liked things like kissing, and holding hands, and going on dates to movies or gridball games or watching the stars; and he liked making out in parked cars at night, and working up the bases and having sex with one person at a time, when it felt right. Maybe that kind of thing was too simple for a city guy.

 _(A city guy who likes making his own jam and goes to every Pelican Town festival and hasn’t been to any city in the last almost-five years except to visit_ you _in the hospital.)_

Sex was another thing, too, though. What if Alex was too slow to get used to the idea of sex with a guy, or he was too uncoordinated now, or took too long to relearn even just the physical movements involved (and probably for some stuff, learn for the first time)? Alex wasn’t sure he was ready for _everything_ right away… Some parts of gay sex seemed… daunting. Were there things that were deal-breakers if Alex didn’t want to do them? It felt like everything about him was just _slow_ now, and it scared him that Ty might get frustrated or bored.

 _(When have you ever seen Ty get impatient? And... it’s not like he’s gotten any recently either. I don’t think either of us are going to be_ that _picky…)_

Alex rubbed his eyes, exhausted. He never stayed up this late anymore, and the fatigue had finally caught up to him. Well, his insecurity was going to have to wait until morning. Sometimes his body was the one that decided his brain was done making itself miserable.

Alex slumped back down onto the bed. Through the foggy feeling that was starting to cloud his mind, he kept catching glimpses of memories from earlier in the evening. He held on to each one. None of the what-ifs were real (at least not yet), but those memories were. Ty kissing him had really happened. He reminded himself again that it never got him anywhere to dwell on ‘if only’ and ‘what if’. The present was all he had, and for right now, it actually seemed pretty all right.

***

It turned out Ty was able to make it all the way to bed before his thoughts caught up with him. No sooner had he pulled up his duvet and switched off the lamp at his bedside table than the dread settled like a weight in his stomach.

He shouldn’t be getting his hopes up like this. Ty’s heart had been like a raw, exposed nerve around Alex for so long now; he didn’t want to know what it would feel like if this ended badly.

How could he be sure he’d gotten to a place where he could give Alex the kind of relationship he deserved? What if he didn’t know how be anything but that poisonous codependent influence that seemed bring out the worst in the guys he dated?

In the past it was something Ty could let completely consume him, which no small number of shitty or messed-up or shitty-and-messed-up people had lined up to capitalize on. Not that Ty hadn't done his share of capitalizing right back at them, diving headfirst into the deep end of the kind of people with enough problems to fill the sinkhole Joja was carving out inside him. It had always been a fucked mutually-parasitic relationship until he inevitably crashed and burned out and then it was time for the next one.

Ty had never been enough as a boyfriend. He could drain himself dry and still not be able to provide what was needed of him. Why did he think this time would be any different? If he backed out of it all now, they could avoid it – Alex could avoid being in a relationship with him; Ty could stop himself from hurting anyone else; he could avoid getting hurt again by his own poor choices. It would be painful now, but it could save them a lot more pain in the long run.

Ty curled into himself under the duvet, as tears stung his eyes. Alex was either going to realize he deserved better, or Ty would break both of them. It was only a matter of time before he fucked it up; the only question was how and when.

Ty just wished Alex was here – even just as a friend. Alex had needed most of the emotional support out of the two of them recently, but Alex knew how to talk to Ty when he got like this, usually with a ‘bro’ thrown in for good measure, Ty remembered fondly.

The thought snapped him out of it.

No. He had not paid for that much out-of-pocket therapy (fuck JojaCares) to lose all this now. Ty could usually recognize when the unhealthy stuff started happening. Like now. This was just self-sabotage, blaming himself for his past boyfriends’ shittiness, jumping to conclusions...

 _Fuck that_ , he thought stubbornly. He wasn’t going to let that shitty old part of his brain fuck this up for him now.

Ty jerked back the covers and grabbed a tissue from his nightstand, wiping his eyes determinedly. He’d kept up so many friendships in this town for over four years and none of those had turned toxic. There was no reason to think he couldn’t employ the same tricks he used to keep his friendships firmly in the healthy range in a relationship.

He’d even fucked up with Alex once already and they’d figured it out. And Alex had shown he wasn’t the kind of person to feed into Ty’s destructive habits. Alex definitely did not like to be on the receiving end of Ty’s obsessive over-concern and problem-solving impulses, and he wasn’t afraid to let Ty know it.

He pulled the duvet back up over his head and forced his tense muscles to relax. It wasn’t going to be easy, but maybe it could be okay. Ty just needed to let himself have this good thing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here, you can have this chapter early :)
> 
> (I made a few tiny word choice tweaks to the previous chapter that you wouldn't even notice, so, no need to go back and read it or anything)
> 
> Thank you all for making it this far and for leaving the nicest damn comments 💗 Ur all too good :)


	25. Hang Time Part I

Ty’s first thoughts as he awoke the next day were of Alex. His eyes were still closed, and he was wading his way through the fog from sleep to consciousness. His mind was drifting through the warmth and give of Alex’s skin under his lips and under his tongue, and then he drifted through the soft prickle of hair under Ty’s fingertips as he traced his way from Alex’s neck up the back of his skull. Ty didn’t want to be awake. If he woke up, he would come out of his present haze enough to know he should be telling himself he _wasn’t allowed_ to think about Alex like that, and he really didn’t want to lose this feeling of what it must be like to kiss him.

Except the next moment he did become aware, and had the stomach-flipping realization that – wait. He _was_ allowed to think about Alex like that. He knew what it was like to kiss Alex – those were _memories_ of kissing him. ~~~~

Ty rolled over and looked at the clock beside his bed. Five in the morning. He had always been an early riser, but it seemed unjust that he was wide awake a whole hour earlier than usual when he was meant to be waiting until that afternoon to meet up with Alex. His chest lurched involuntarily at the idea of seeing him again after last night.

Yoba, he was definitely balls-deep in this now.

Usually, time seemed to get away from him on the farm, and he often ended up rushing to get everything done, sometimes leaving the less-essential chores until the evening, so he could get to town before all the shops closed. Today, though, his nervous energy must have kicked him into high gear, because it was _nine forty-five_ and he’d run out of things to do. Of course.

After taking an extra-long post-work shower and reorganizing his storage chests, Ty began to consider rearranging his furniture. He was thankfully spared by a knock at the door, however, and waited a few moments before answering to cover up the fact that he had already been standing a few feet from the doorway.

Ty was too delighted to see that it was Alex to be surprised that he was so early.

“I know it’s only ten, but I ran out of stuff to keep myself busy and I wanted to see you, so I gave up.” Alex scrubbed at the back of his hair as he looked up at Ty. “Should I come back later?”

“Honestly, I was getting ready to alphabetize my refrigerator, so, uh, I’m in that same boat, actually.”

Alex’s shoulders dropped in relief. “Glad it wasn’t just me.”

“Come in,” Ty waved him inside, and they dropped onto the couch next to each other.

“It’s good to see you,” Ty ventured.

“You too.”

He didn’t make a move, didn’t want to break the stretch of ambiguity, just in case. If Ty did something definitive, Alex might do something definitive, and the definitive thing could be a _concluding_ thing.

But Alex reached out, palms up, inviting Ty’s hands into his, and Ty was sliding his hands into Alex’s. It was like all his nerve endings were on overdrive. They were intertwining their fingers and as easy and irresistible as letting the momentum of a steep hill carry a walk into a run, their lips were colliding again. At first Ty held back a little, unsure exactly what Alex’s mood was coming into this, but it became apparent that any hesitation was only on his part as Alex quickly became more confident and eager. He was leaning into Ty, putting his hand on Ty’s waist, and kissing him smoothly, easily. Ty was almost too distracted by still just being blown away that Alex wanted to be kissing him at all to catch on just how _perfectly_ smooth and methodical Alex was being right now.

_He’s nervous,_ Ty realized. This must be the kissing version of his cocky defense mode.

Ty laid his hands on Alex’s upper arms, and slowed their kissing, hoping to get Alex out of his head. Alex tensed for a second, but let Ty guide them until they both began to relax into each other. It was okay: it was just the two of them, there was nothing to be nervous about. Just Ty and Alex, who knew how to be around each other and who could figure it out, even in all these unfamiliar situations they were finding themselves in.

Soon, they were back to the kind of heated, insistent energy they’d had at the spa yesterday. Ty was soaking in every second of every sensation, savoring this time to learn what it was like to kiss Alex: his idiosyncrasies, like how his hands kept creeping up to sink into Ty’s hair; and how he would frame his long, deep, kisses with short little affectionate ones that made Ty melt every time.

Eventually, their pace wound down again until each kiss became slow and lazy. Alex slumped to the side, laying his head onto the back of the couch, and looked up at Ty through half-lidded eyes.

The late morning sunlight revealed the green in Alex’s eyes that was hard to catch in any other light amidst the deep brown, and Ty felt awash in a peaceful feeling, content to just be here and take in as much of Alex as he could from where they sat.

Alex’s eyes sharpened into something more serious, though.

“So… what does all this mean… for us?” he asked.

Well, that was the question.

Ty considered his next words. The last thing he wanted was to get overexcited and scare Alex away or push him into something he wasn’t ready for (or embarrass himself by saying what he honestly wished for was to jump headlong into a whole-ass Relationship with a capital ‘R’ and Alex not feeling the same way).

“I like what we’re doing. But, if you want to stop, I understand.” 

“I don’t want to stop.”

The glowing, heart-hammering feeling that was radiating from his center spread and filled his whole chest.

“Me neither,” Ty said.

Alex pushed himself to a more upright position, jaw set like he was determined to get to the bottom of this. “Okay. But what does this kind of thing mean for you? Because, for me, kissing and spending time together and stuff like we’re doing means I want to get more serious.”

“Yeah... That’s what it means to me, too.”

Ty felt like he should be the more eloquent one in the situation, since he wasn’t navigating new realizations about his sexuality on top of potentially starting a new relationship, but here he was with everything he wanted to say (all the hundreds of words he’d ever wanted to say) jammed up in a jumbled mess that didn’t know how to make it past his throat.

“Do you want to? Get more serious?” Alex looked apprehensive, and Ty wanted to answer, to reassure him, _yes, yes, definitely, absolutely, yes_ – but emotion overwhelmed him for a moment and all he could do was let his smile spread wider.

“Yeah,” he was finally able to get out, “That would be really… amazing. Yes. I... really like you Alex.”

“I really like you too.” Alex’s smile twitched on his lips.

“So, we’re dating each other. A relationship. You’re my boyfriend.” Ty was getting a little lightheaded now.

Alex actually blushed. “Yeah. That’s kind of weird still… to hear that word. I’m still, like, adjusting to the idea of– but yes. I want to be… boyfriends.”

“Good,” Ty smiled. He knew he must be grinning like a complete fool.

It felt like his chest, his head, his whole body was going to overflow, with what, he didn’t even have the brain capacity to identify.

And then Alex was kissing him again. Ty thought foggily that he could probably keep doing this forever. He wasn’t sure if he was pulling Alex down or Alex was pushing him back into the couch cushions, but then they were curling into each other until they were nestled deep into the couch. Alex buried his face in the curve between Ty’s neck and shoulder, and it wasn’t long until Ty felt Alex’s breathing become slow and even with sleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fellas, is it gay to show up two hours early to your DTR sesh?
> 
> I realized if I post one chapter a week from now on, I’ll be done by the end of the year! 😳 Will that happen? No, but I can dream. I have a whole week off though, so I'm gonna try to smash out some of these chapters. 
> 
> As always, tysm for the comments & kudos <3 <3 <3


	26. Hang Time Part II

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Additional Chapter Tags: discussions of homophobia & internalized ableism, chronic/acute pain.

“Hey. Sorry to wake you up.”

Alex blinked some of the blurry sleep from his eyes and found he was still on Ty’s couch. Ty was closing the front door behind him and Alex heard his keys clink softly into the bowl by the front door.

“Oof, it’s freezing out there.” Ty shivered visibly as he took off the windbreaker he was wearing.

“Where’d you go?” Alex asked, still disoriented from sleep and waking up in a strange place.

“Pierre’s.”

“What for?” He rubbed his eyes and scooted to a sitting position. His muscles were already starting to build up to an ache. Apparently he was going to be paying for the last three days’ activities sooner rather than later.

Ty walked over and held up a bunch of flowers Alex hadn’t noticed he’d been carrying. They were sunny and bright, a stark contrast to the glum, wet weather that had apparently set in since Alex fell asleep. The corner of Alex’s mouth tugged up into a half-grin.

“Flowers! They’re really nice, Ty.”

“Yeah, Pierre kept saying that in Pelican Town, the way you show people you want a relationship is to give them a bouquet, so, yeah.”

Alex snorted. “Really? Did he also used to tell you he’d go out of business if you ever shopped at JojaMart? Like more than two people ever actually went there.”

Ty shifted on his feet uncomfortably. “Wait, what do you mean? That’s not a thing in Pelican Town?”

“Well… I guess, yeah, giving someone flowers is romantic or whatever, but no more than anywhere else.”

“Yoba, Pierre, sometimes…” Ty gritted his teeth.

“He’s probably just mad he doesn’t have mermaid pendants to sell or something and wanted to make up something he could cash in on.” Alex wasn’t normally so cynical, but it was something else for Pierre to take advantage of Ty like that just to make a couple bucks.

“Oh, so, the mermaid pendant thing actually is a Pelican Town tradition?”

“Yeah that one’s real.”

“Dang. Well, I guess he got me good.”

“Come here.”

Ty moved closer, the flowers hanging down by his side. Alex took them from him. “Thank you for buying me a bouquet.” He pulled Ty down into a kiss. “And thanks for trying to do things the Pelican Town way. You’re a sweet guy, Tyrone.”

Alex tried to bite back a smile but could tell it wasn’t working.

“Well, I guess the Pelican Town way is falling for Pierre’s schemes once in a while,” Ty sighed, flopping down next to Alex on the couch.

He couldn’t help laughing that time. “Yeah, that’s never happened to me.”

“You’re not gonna try to make me feel better about this, are you?”

“No, I did that part already: I said thank you, and now I can go back to thinking it’s a little funny.”

“Maybe a little,” Ty smiled. He offered a hand to Alex and Alex moved the bouquet to the side table next to him and put his hand in Ty’s. It hadn’t lost its novelty yet: not having to pull away, tell himself any contact was accidental and meaningless. He could feel his own heartbeat; his palm resting on Ty’s fingers alone felt like an intensely vulnerable intimacy.

Alex took a calming breath and leaned his head onto Ty’s shoulder.

“So, the whole town knows we’re dating then, huh?” Alex didn’t think he minded, though he would have liked to have told his grandparents and Haley on his own.

“I didn’t tell anyone while I was out.”

“Well, if Pierre told you buying a bouquet means you’re dating someone and then you bought one off him...”

“Oh. No, it was actually Abby at the counter today, and she didn’t say anything. So maybe Pierre was the only one in on it. You know, it did cross my mind that she was being really chill about me buying the _Relationship Flowers_ ,” Ty remarked, with a good measure of self-deprecating irony.

Alex laughed again and raised his head to look at Ty. “I don’t even know what to do with you.”

Ty was looking back at him with a mushy face that Alex might have teased him about were he making it at anyone else.

“So, _are_ we going to be open about us being in a relationship?” Ty asked.

Alex was quiet for a moment, considering. It was daunting, but... even the thought of sneaking around and making sure people didn’t find out made him tired. Just telling people seemed like way less effort.

“Yeah. Let me tell my folks and Haley first, though, okay?”

“Can I tell my friends, too?” 

“It’s only until, like, tomorrow, I just want to be able to tell my family before they hear it from someone else. Word gets around fast.”

“Okay, no pressure. Just let me know whenever you’re okay with me talking about it.”

Alex settled back into Ty’s shoulder. For now, he just wanted to lean against his boyfriend and feel the motion of his steady, quiet breathing.

_My boyfriend._

Alex’s heart sped up again at the reminder that _this was real now_. He tried to just relax and enjoy sitting there together, but doubt and anxiety were already taking advantage of the lull in activity to begin tightening around his ribcage.

“I don’t really know how to do this,” Alex admitted in a low voice.

“Like, be in a relationship?”

Alex pushed himself upright again. “Yeah. I mean, I’ve dated before, obviously, but it was always, like, there would be a hot girl, then we would start dating, and we’d hang out and hook up and stuff, and then usually she’d start saying I spent too much time at gridball practice and then we’d break up. And I, uh… haven’t been in a relationship at all since high school, actually.” Ty probably knew enough to guess that already, but it was still embarrassing to admit out loud. “I feel like, since we’re both guys… there aren’t any rules, except maybe there are rules that I don’t know about, and both those things kind of freak me out.”

“No, there aren’t any gay rules or anything. But I guess I don’t entirely know what I’m doing either.” Ty slouched his elbows onto his knees. “Most of the relationships I’ve had have been pretty unhealthy.”

Ty had told him before about the crappy boyfriends he’d had in the years before moving to Pelican Town, but he hadn’t gone into detail.

“I think I remember you talking about a lot of guys with… emotional problems?”

“That’s one way to put it,” Ty said flatly. His face was turned away, but his voice had taken on the dullness it got whenever Ty started talking about that time in his life.

“Ty, I don’t… fall into that category, do I?” Alex asked, this new fear suddenly clicking into place. “I know I’m not always the most… emotionally stable.”

Ty turned his full attention back to Alex. “No, not at all – not like panic attacks and depression and stuff. More like they could hang out with their friends and talk about their problems and ask for money and yell when they were angry, but if I did any of that, I was being selfish or manipulative.”

“I’m sorry. You didn’t deserve that.”

Ty shrugged. “Well, I let them do it.”

Alex’s temper flared, but he managed to douse it enough not to raise his voice. “It is _not_ your fault they didn’t treat you right.”

“I don’t know, I used to look for those kinds of guys. I liked taking care of other people’s problems. But, uh, you knew that. I’m getting better. I know it was fucked up now and that I was only doing it so I didn’t have to deal with my problems.”

“Um, no. It doesn’t matter what you were doing. They were the ones taking advantage of someone going through a bad time. They’re the ones in the wrong here. Because decent people will say something if they see you doing too much for them.”

Ty was silent. Alex worried for a moment he’d said too much, but it was something Ty needed to hear if that’s still how he thought of his past boyfriends.

“That’s… what you did,” Ty finally said quietly.

“What did I do?”

“You got pissed and told me to quit it when I was doing that to you – trying to solve your problems in a shitty way instead of dealing with mine.”

“Oh. With the beach thing.”

“Yeah.” He sighed. “I’m sorry… you’re right.”

“I am. Don’t forget it.” Alex tried to keep the indignation at Ty’s exes out of his voice.

“Oh, um, when I said I let them treat me badly – I didn’t mean to say that your mom– or you–”

“I know,” Alex cut in. Ty must have realized the same time he did the reason Alex had gotten himself so worked up about this. “You’re good.”

Alex sighed and let the tension in his shoulders melt away. “Well, we can just figure things out as we go, you know? I’ve been trying to think about things more before I do them, so I don’t just get stuck doing something without thinking if I really want to be doing it. But also let myself just do things in the moment instead of over-thinking and not doing anything at all. Well, now those sound like opposite things – I don’t know what I was even trying to say.”

“No, I get you. You mean, like, trying to be purposeful and intentional about the things in your life. So, you want to apply that to our relationship, too.”

“Yes, that.”

“Yeah. We can just take things slow and pay attention to how we’re feeling and check in with each other.”

Alex nodded.

“Okay,” Ty said. “I guess that’s all we can do. Just figure it out as we go.”

They settled further down into each other on the couch.

“We should get some food,” Ty said.

Alex was kind of hungry.

Once they had sat down at the table with a plate of sandwiches, Alex’s mind got to wandering again.

He grimaced internally. He was going to have to _come out_ to his grandparents. It was a reality he’d pushed off thinking about so far. Why couldn’t he and Ty just tell everyone they were dating and that be all it was? Alex envied Ty a little – everyone already knew he was gay. He wished it didn’t feel like he was exposing a raw, fragile secret just by telling people about him and Ty.

“Could you come over tomorrow after I tell Haley and my grandparents about us? I think I want to be around people – well, I want you to be there, in case things don’t go great.”

“Do you think it might? Evelyn and George have known I’m gay forever. I’m pretty sure anyone who used to talk to my Grandpa knew I was gay before I even moved here.”

“I think Grandma will be okay with it. Or at least wouldn’t ever tell me any different. I don’t really know with my Grandpa, though. He likes you, and he doesn’t like anyone. But he’s also… said some stuff in the past, about men being together. I’m not sure. I don’t think he’d come right out and say anything like that anymore, but I think he’s more just okay with gay stuff as long as he doesn’t have to see it, or think about it. I could just see him telling me he doesn’t want to see us together in the house or hear me talk about it more than anything else.”

Ty nodded and squeezed his hand.

“And lately he’s been… I don’t know if it’s hard on me or protective of me… I guess both. I was never that close with him, but I think when I started having to use a wheelchair, too, it was hard for him in some way?”

“Brought some stuff up?”

“Yeah. I had a talk with him after you and I started talking again, and I think, from what I could tell… it was hard for him to see me struggling and not know how to help, and feel like he should because he’d kind of been there. But also, our experiences were pretty different and I was… not great at taking any help or advice. I think he wanted me to be able to toughen up and adjust as fast as possible, and that somehow translated into telling me I should stop complaining and just figure it out because I was younger than he was when he had his mining accident? I’m not entirely sure, I’m filling in some blanks there…

“Anyway, I just think when he worries about me, it turns into being hard on me. And I can see how there would be things he’d worry about with me being in a relationship with a guy, like if other people would treat me different… I’m trying to be ready in case he says anything, but I think it would be nice to have you there after anyway.”

“If it doesn’t go the way you hope, would it still be okay for me to come?”

“Oh, yeah. I don’t think he has a problem with _you_ being gay.”

“He wouldn’t think I like… turned you or something?”

“Oh, I don’t know. If he did, he likes you enough he’d probably just conveniently forget about it or pretend it never happened around you.”

“Okay. I’ll be there. Is there anything else I can do to be there for you, or make it a little easier or anything?”

“Um… Could you maybe give me a hug tomorrow?”

“Of course I’ll give you a hug, you goof. Do you want one now?”

“Yeah.”

By the time Alex made it back to his room, all his fear and excitement and elation and contentment had been completely displaced by utter exhaustion, until the only thing on his mind was getting into bed. His limbs felt so heavy; the pain and stiffness had only worsened since the afternoon, and it took him a few tries before he was able to get enough momentum to collapse himself onto the mattress in the same clothes he’d been wearing all day.

He’d known he’d been pushing himself too hard, and the consequences had finally caught up to him. If this was going to work with him and Ty, he couldn’t be over here pretending that stuff like going to Ty’s twice in three days on top of going all the way to the spa – and swimming while he was there – was at all something he could be doing. Alex tried to ignore the vague hope that he might be able to increase his stamina eventually. Better to spend his time focusing on getting used to what he was capable of in the present. All he could do now was ride out the pain.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi, you get the whole DTR convo play-by-play because I’m Like That. 
> 
> This chapter is going up late because I was procrastinating by writing 5k words of a fic so self-indulgent as to be unpostable in addition to spending an unreasonable amount of time on custom wheelchair websites and watching physical therapy videos...
> 
> Also, lord, I hope y’all are buckled up for some sappy fluff I wrote in an extremely touch-starved and thirsty state while quarantining alone for 3 months without my wife…
> 
> Edit 10/27: I'm going to be taking longer between updates but posting more chapters at once. I've been more motivated to work on the later chapters, and I think I'll prefer that way to posting one at a time anyway (plus I've been trying to get more than 4-5 hours of sleep a night so that cuts into fanfic writing time ;).) But I'm still working on it slowly...


	27. Press Conference

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Additional Chapter Tags: Excessive fluff…, descriptions of chronic pain/injury, internalized ableism, references to car accident, mild homophobia.

Alex lay in bed, eyelids heavy but unable to sleep. A deep ache radiated from his bones and blended with the sharper burn of stiff muscles. It was a pain day. Again. He winced as he unsuccessfully tried finding a more comfortable position.

Pain made Alex’s small world even smaller: his frame of reference had already shrunk from the wide possibilities of travelling the continent as a professional athlete to a thirty minute radius from his house. But on days like today, the world was constricted to the confines of his room, to his bed. He’d even had days with stretches of time where pain dominated everything until the outer edges of his existence stretched only as far as the surface of his skin.

It wasn’t even the pain itself that got him a lot of the time, it was the monotony of it. It was always there. The best days allowed it to fade to the background until it was an ignorable discomfort, but it never let up that much for more than a few days’ time. Even the unpredictability felt monotonous sometimes.

Alex sometimes wondered if the pain would have been the only lasting effect of getting hit by a car if he hadn’t had a head injury. He knew he tended to blame a lot on the blood vessels in his brain not keeping their shit together, but in reality, the impact had wrecked the rest of his body pretty bad, too.

He let himself indulge in another minute or two of self-pity before telling himself it was time to find something else to think about.

Like Ty coming over. That was something to look forward to.

And today sucked, but it was already an improvement on yesterday. Alex had been in even more pain then, and when Ty had stopped by as they had planned, Alex had to ask him to come back the next day, since he hadn’t had the energy or brain space to tell his grandparents about him and Ty the night before. He hated throwing a wrench in their plans like that already, but this was just his life now – this was what being in a relationship with him was going to be like. No reason to try and pretend any different.

He’d felt a little better by the evening, though, and he’d managed to sit up long enough through dinner to talk to his grandparents.

But he didn’t get the chance to reflect on this, as the next moment, Ty’s knock came at the bedroom door. Ty cracked the door and poked his head inside, and Alex lifted a hand to gesture him in.

Ty was in his socks, and was unwrapping a long knitted scarf and shrugging off a puffy jacket straight onto the floor, sending little water droplets everywhere.

"Snow?” Alex managed groggily.

“Yeah, it’s fuckin’ _cold_ out there,” Ty sniffed with a visible shiver, “It’s cold in here, too, Yoba. How are you not freezing?”

Alex raised a shoulder in a painful half-shrug, but he was barely warm even with extra quilts piled on. His Grandpa was being worse than usual this year about turning down the heat to save on oil, and Alex was acutely aware that his medical bills were the reason.

Ty sat down on the edge of the bed and brushed the backs of his fingers along Alex’s temple. His hands were freezing, but Alex didn’t mind.

“Hey. How are you doing today?”

“Bad. A lot of pain. And I’m tired.”

“Okay, should I leave and let you rest, then?”

“No, stay.” Alex’s head was all foggy, but he didn’t want Ty to go. He wrapped an arm around Ty’s waist. “Lay with me?”

“Yeah.”

Alex held up the blankets, with effort, and Ty moved in beside him. Ty lay on his side, keeping space between the two of them, but Alex just wanted to cling to another person – wanted to cling to Ty right now and just be held. His emotions felt raw from the last few days.

“Want a hug?” It felt more like a confession than an offer.

“Of course, come here,” Ty said, stretching his arms out in invitation.

Alex draped an arm over Ty at first. There was a terrified part of him begging himself not to get excessively, embarrassingly needy with physical affection the way he did in relationships and end up putting Ty off. But being encircled in Ty’s strong, soothing arms was so much of what he needed right now that it broke through Alex’s restraint. He tightened his hold on Ty and buried his face in his shoulder.

Ty rubbed absent-minded circles on Alex’s back. It felt good. Something to focus on other than the pain.

“I told my Grandma and Grandpa,” Alex said, his voice muffled in Ty’s shirt.

“Yeah?” Ty angled away from Alex to look down at him. “How’d it go? George did seem kinda grumpy, but not more than a slightly-grumpier-than-average day? So, it was hard to tell…”

“It was actually… good,” Alex smiled in recollection. “My Grandma– she was okay with it. And really happy for us.”

“Oh, good.” Ty looked relieved.

Alex’s grandparents were more the type to leave a topical book on his bed than to have an actual conversation about anything, but when they’d sat down for dinner, Alex had steeled himself, announced he had something to tell them, and matter-of-factly declared that he and Ty were dating.

He hadn’t realized how tense he’d been until he saw his Grandma’s immediate warm smile as she squeezed his hand – “ _Oh, that’s wonderful, Alex. I’m so happy for you two boys_ ”. Although it wasn’t until Alex had gotten through his initial wave of relief-exhilaration-joy that he pointed out that she didn’t sound especially surprised. “ _Well… No, dear,_ ” she had replied, giving his hand a pat.

“Yeah, she was chill. She said it made sense, us being together. And she wasn’t surprised.”

“Aw, that’s nice,” Ty smiled. “Did she, like… figure us out?”

“She said it seemed like I had something on my mind for a while, and that we were spending a lot of time together – she ‘ _had her suspicions_ ,’ is what she said.”

“Evelyn _would_ figure us out,” Ty smiled fondly.

“Oh, but then she didn’t believe me at first when I said we only got together a couple days ago. She was like ‘you mean you two have been _like that_ for all this time and you _haven’t_ been in a relationship?’ She thought we started dating months ago. And the first time she wondered if we were more than friends was, like, more than a year ago.”

“Oh, Yoba, everyone’s gonna know how ridiculous we are, huh?” Ty groaned.

“Are you sure they don’t already?” Alex asked. It was comforting in a way that his Grandma had been able to see him and Ty the way they saw themselves before they’d even known how. He wasn’t sure how to feel about the idea of everyone else having seen through them this whole time as well.

“Nah, I’m pretty positive everyone thinks you are very straight.”

“Oh. Yeah.” Alex wasn’t sure what to feel about that either.

“What about your Grandpa? What did he say?”

Alex rolled onto his back, letting Ty’s hand settle on his chest, and looked up at the ceiling.

“It was pretty much what I thought.”

Alex’s Grandpa had been quiet until his Grandma had given him a significant look over the table, and he had finally grumbled, "Hm _. Well. He’s a… nice young man"_ , to which his Grandma had added, "Your _Grandfather is happy for you two"_.

Since then, his Grandpa had been quieter around him.

“He didn’t really say much. Just looked kind of uncomfortable. But I think he’s still okay with you.”

“I’m sorry it wasn’t better, though. You okay?”

“Yeah. Like I said, I’m not surprised.” Alex broke into a yawn. He didn’t particularly want to dwell on it. “I haven’t told Haley yet though. Maybe tomorrow if I stop feeling like crap.”

“Sounds good.”

Alex rolled back over so he could have Ty pressed close to him again, and they lay quietly together. It felt surprisingly right for them to be touching like this, like his body had gotten used to the idea of wanting to be this close to Ty, like it had been simmering under the surface for who knew how long, and his brain hadn’t needed to go very far to catch up.

“I’m proud of you,” Ty murmured, “And I’m glad to be your boyfriend.”

Ty kissed his temple and for a moment, Alex felt that nobody’s opinion about him and who he was dating could matter. He hugged Ty in as tight as his arms would let him, ignoring the ache in his muscles as he did so.

“I’m glad to be your boyfriend too,” he smiled into Ty’s chest.

They stayed like that for a long while, letting their body heat keep out the cold, until Ty had to leave to finish up his farm duties for the day.

It would be easy for Alex to hang back in the dark of his bedroom the rest of the night. He could avoid having to face more of the uncertainty of what it was like now to interact with other people that knew he was in a relationship with a guy. But Alex decided against this and emerged from his room to have dinner with his grandparents again instead.

The next day, Alex was finally able to hang out with Haley. She had tasked them with sorting through her boxes of photo prints and pick out the good ones to put together a proper portfolio. She had already started pinning candidates to a corkboard hanging on the wall behind the table they were working at.

Alex kept trying to find the right moment to tell her about him and Ty, but he’d already been there an hour and hadn’t even come close.

So much had changed in the last year, and Alex got the sense that Haley still saw him as closer to who he’d been before his accident than whoever he was now. He was unsure of so many things about himself right now, but this one thing he was sure about. It was really the closest single concrete thing he could show to Haley that he was different than he used to be. Telling her felt scarier yet somehow more important than with anyone else.

But it was still harder to talk to Haley about stuff than Ty or Sebastian. She was always supportive, but she didn’t always _get it_ the first time. Sometimes they had to explain themselves to each other. Their friendship was strong but it wasn’t always easy: it was something they had to work at.

Alex reminded himself that there were three other people who already knew he wasn’t straight and none of them had completely rejected him. It had been such an aching relief that Ty hadn’t reacted in confusion and disbelief that Alex had feelings for him, as if it wasn’t outlandishly unbelievable for Alex to have feelings for a guy. The same was true for his Grandma’s lack of surprise when he’d told her. Maybe that did take a little of the pressure off telling Haley.

Alex put aside the stack of prints he’d been shuffling through. It wasn’t like it was going to come up in conversation on its own: there was never going to be a good moment. Alex steeled himself and forced the words out.

“Haley, I need to tell you something.”

“Oh, yeah, what?” She turned her full, intimidatingly intense attention to Alex and set down the box of thumbtacks she was holding.

Well, now he _had_ to say it. His brain came to a standstill, and for a few moments, he didn’t know if he was going to be able to say anything at all. It felt like he was trying to put bigger, cloudier ideas into the few words he was supposed to be saying than could fit.

Haley looked concerned. “What’s wrong?”

“Um, nothing, it’s just… Well, not nothing. I wanted to tell you that… me and Ty are– dating now.”

“ _Oh._ Wow, Alex!”

He couldn’t read beyond the shock on her face into what she might be thinking.

“You’re surprised.”

“Well, _yeah._ ”

Haley sat. She looked down at her skirt and smoothed it out before folding her hands in her lap.

“So… you like guys?” she finally asked, eyes meeting his again.

“Uh, yes.” He had to restrain himself from adding an ‘obviously’ at the end.

Haley nodded slowly. “How long have you known?”

“Only like, a week or two, I guess. But I’ve been realizing I probably liked guys my whole life, I just didn’t let myself admit it.” Now he was having a hard time looking her in the eye. He straightened a pile of photos on the workbench.

“Wow,” she said again. She was looking pensive and playing with her hair. So many different emotions seemed to flicker and blend across her face that Alex couldn’t keep up. She looked like she might cry.

Alex felt disappointment and unease drag down at him, and focused on taking an even breath to keep his thoughts away from anything that could send him into a panic spiral. _Fuck._ This wasn’t how this was supposed to go.

“Oh– Alex, I’m sorry, no,” Haley was shaking her head, “That was– not the right response. I’m sorry. You know I’ll love you forever no matter what, and I am really happy for you and Ty, I promise.”

“It… looked like you were upset.” His heart was still thudding in his chest as he continued trying to calm down his brain.

“Never mind Alex, it was stupid. And it’s not about me right now.”

“Haley, please. It’s going to bother me now.”

“I’m sorry, I just… started getting sad that we didn’t ever talk about it before, or that you didn’t feel like you could tell me right away. And then... I guess I’ve been feeling like I’m the last to know things lately. I know it’s a selfish thing to think about right now. But you have your other friends you hang out with a lot, and, like, I’m glad you have them and are hanging out with them, it’s just... something to get used to.”

The guilt that had been building in the back of his mind about this very thing was suddenly front and center. “No, I know I haven’t been the greatest friend lately. Ever since I realized… I was avoiding you. I was kind of scared to tell you.” He knew it hurt Haley to hear him say it.

“But why, Alex? You know I’ll always love you.”

“I kept worrying you might not believe me,” he admitted.

“Why wouldn’t I believe you? I mean, I’m still kind of wrapping my head around it, but… Of course I do, you goof.”

“’Cause you’ve known me forever. I thought it would be more of a change for you.”

Haley looked thoughtful for a moment. “Well… maybe not. You were _really_ jealous of that hot receiver hooking up with your ex that one year…”

Alex felt the heat rise to his face. “Yoba, Haley, that was one of the first things I thought of, too.”

“ _I knew it_!” she grinned.

“You did not,” Alex protested.

“Okay, not at the time, no.”

She smiled softly and bumped shoulders with him. One good thing about their friendship was that they were both pretty even on the score of inappropriately making something about yourself by accident. They had had to make up with each other for that reason so many times that by the sixth grade all they had to do was give each other _that look_ and it was a mutual understanding that everything was even. Look having been exchanged, and tensions dissipated, Haley held her arms out, and Alex returned with a hug.

When they broke apart she was still smiling. “So. You and Ty, huh?”

“Yeah,” Alex shrugged, but he could feel the smile on his face as all the warm, fluttery feelings that came every time he thought about Ty rushed back into him.

“I think I’m somehow less surprised about _that_ than I should be,” Haley said, and turned to pin a photo of Jas and Vincent playing on the beach to the bulletin board.

Alex picked up his stack of photos and started flipping through them again.

“My Grandma said the same thing!”

“Pff, well, you two are _always_ together."

Alex could tell he was blushing again and suddenly became very interested in that particular section of photo prints.

Haley pulled out another box of photos and set it beside Alex, who was getting towards the end of the box he’d been working on.

“Hm, you know? I think I feel less jealous of Ty for getting so much of your attention,” Haley said, smirking. “Now that I know I’m not competing for ‘best friend’ with him. ‘Boyfriend’ is a completely different category,” she added matter-of-factly.

“Haley, you were never competing with Ty,” Alex grumbled.

“If you say so.”

Alex made a face at her, but handed her a photo of a white hare in the forest that he thought was kind of cool.

“So, are you gay? Or bisexual?” Haley asked casually, “Or something else?”

Alex gave a humorless laugh. “I’ll tell you when I figure it out. I always thought people just knew. Do you like guys? Yes or no. Do you like girls? Yes or no. There’s you answer. I don’t even know why I don’t know. I have no idea what I’m doing, Haley. I don’t know how any… gay stuff works.”

“Well, you only realized, like, a week ago.”

“I know,” he said gloomily, “I just want there to not be so many things that are confusing and weird. I wish more things made sense the way they used to.”

“Tell me about it,” she sighed.

They finished up the photo sorting by early afternoon, then Alex excused himself and decided to just hole up in his room the rest of the day. From the bottom falling out of the remaining shreds of what thought he knew about himself to making himself more vulnerable than he ever thought he was capable of to everyone closest to him, to all the love and acceptance and support he’d somehow lucked into receiving back, it had been an emotional marathon the past week and a half.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fuck it, have this chapter. The next chapter's a bit of a bottleneck point right now, so it might be a while until the next update, but I have multiple chapters after it finished! I'm... getting there... 😩
> 
> Thank you all for reading! 💗


	28. Holding

“I still can’t fucking _believe_ you two are together,” Shane said, and held up a length of Winter Star lights.

“Tell me about it.” Ty replied. He took the string of lights from Shane and held them up against the side of the Mullners’ house, lining them up with the lights he’d already hung, and tapped a thin finishing nail into the wood siding to hold them in place. Ty repeated this with the next strand of lights Shane handed him.

Hanging the Winter Star lights had been Alex’s job every winter since he was in high school, so when Alex had lamented not getting to have lights on the house this year, Ty had immediately insisted on putting them up. Alex had resisted, but eventually agreed when Ty said he’d exchange his labor for some of Evelyn’s star-shaped cookies, and Ty had enlisted a semi-willing Shane to spot him on the ladder. Evelyn and Alex were inside baking now, both Ty and Alex having agreed it was important for them to get alone time with their friends once in a while.

“Well, you keep disappearing for days at a time, so it must not be going too badly so far,” Shane remarked.

“Sorry. I guess ditching you to hang out with my boyfriend and then showing up asking for a favor for my boyfriend is kind of a dick move, huh?” Ty replied sheepishly as he climbed down the ladder again. He could admit he’d probably been letting some of the other aspects of his life slide in the almost three weeks since he and Alex had made it official, but, hey – they had a lot of respective pining and suppressing to make up for (and Alex was, like, really good to make out with…).

“I’m just giving you a hard time,” Shane said, carrying the other side of the ladder as he and Ty moved it over to the next section of house. He held the ladder steady as Ty climbed back up. “It’s good to see you crazy kids out there living your dreams and dating and all that.”

“Well, it _has_ been pretty good,” Ty smiled to himself.

“Oh?”

“Put your eyebrows away. We’re taking things slow.”

“Aw, come on, stop being so fuckin’ cute,” Shane said, frowning with the effort of untangling unruly strands of lights. “So, is Boyfriend Alex everything you thought?”

“I don’t think I really let myself think about what an actual _relationship_ relationship would be like. Just too far out of the realm of possibility.”

“Yeah, that kind of stuff isn’t exactly shower wank material, is it?”

“ _Shane_ , I did _not_ – I tried not to– I mean– well, whatever.” Ty’s face felt distinctly warm despite the temperature outside. “Do you actually want to know or do you just want to fuck with me about it?”

“All right, all right, tell me. I’ll shut up this time.”

“ _Thank_ you. It’s been really nice. It’s still surreal for sure. I didn’t think about how – I don’t know, good? Relieving? – it would be now that there isn’t this big thing between us that I’m hiding from him anymore. I think you were right before about just telling Alex I had feelings for him, even if he had totally rejected me. I don’t think I realized how draining it was to hold that for so long. I feel like I can breathe now that I don’t have to keep my guard up all the time. And I get to see sides of him I’ve never seen before. Ugh, he’s just, like, really sweet all the time and I just wanna smoosh his dorky hot face– oh, um…” Ty cleared his throat, remembering himself. “But yeah, sometimes it just feels normal. I guess a lot of stuff really hasn’t changed much. Just more, y’know, gay.”

Shane smiled up at him like a proud parent.

“What?”

“You’ve just come real far is all. It’s like the kid brother I never had’s all grown up and going on his first date or something.”

“Aw, are those tears?”

“No, I uh… just got something in my eye – wait.” Shane backed up and squinted up at the house. “That’s definitely crooked.”

“Ha, ha, very funny – it’s okay to have feelings, you know, Shane,” Ty said, pulling a face.

“No, it’s actually crooked.”

“Ugh, where?” Ty sighed.

“Just move that last section up a little.”

Ty pried up the last nail and repositioned the lights.

“Higher. Lower. Yeah, there.”

Ty drove the nail into the siding before moving the ladder over again.

As surreal as it was to be multiple weeks into a romantic relationship with his best-friend-slash-longtime-unrequited-crush, it was even stranger sometimes that other people knew about it – acknowledged that he and Alex were together in little reminders that this existed outside of their comfortable bubble when it was just him and Alex.

Shane had thought Ty was kidding when Ty told him, and had barely believed it until he saw Ty and Alex together. Sebastian, on the other hand, had been among the growing tally of people who were not really very surprised that he and Alex had ended up dating, although he had somehow been the only one to have actually suspected anything. _“I knew there was something going on with you two,”_ Sebastian had smirked. _“That’s cute though, congrats_ _.”_

“Hey, Ty,” Shane spoke up, “I know you can get to overthinking and getting down on yourself really easy. You telling your brain to give you break now and then?”

Ty laughed. He should probably be honored Shane’s protective side usually only reserved for family was coming out right now.

“Yeah. I still get a little paranoid I’m going to start forgetting how boundaries work again, but mostly I can just tell myself everything’s still okay or check in with Alex if I’m not sure.”

“Good, good. Just checking.”

“Yeah.” Ty chewed the inside of his lip. He stepped down from the ladder again. “Well… there’s also– Alex has been having a lot more days where he’s too tired or in too much pain to do a whole lot. I guess it’s because we’ve been spending a little more time at my house, just to have some time alone, so he’s probably doing more than he used to.” Ty sat on one of the rungs of the ladder. “I’m trying not to feel guilty about it. I don’t want him to push himself too hard because of me… I keep trying to check in and see if he wants to stay at his house or rest… But, Alex is an adult, and he’s the one who decides what’s too much for him to do. And we’ll just keep working on finding a better balance I guess.”

“Guess you’ll be testing those boundary muscles right off the bat, then, huh?”

Ty pulled a face at the reminder that his brain needed extra babysitting to behave itself the minute he got stressed about something.

“You two’ll figure it out, though. You’re good at that, now, remember? So don’t get your brain working too hard. It sounds like things are really good, though, Ty.”

“Yeah.” He’d admit, overall he and Alex were making this work a lot better than Ty could have hoped.

“You deserve it.”

“Thanks Shane,” Ty said, trying to shake off the guilt that had crept up from the back of his mind. But Shane was right. Getting in his head wasn’t going to get him anywhere. Ty stood and picked up his hammer again. “Okay, help me with this last stretch.”

They lapsed into talk about the most recent Tunnelers game and incubator settings for void chicken eggs, and finished hanging the rest of the lights. Shane quickly made himself scarce before he was roped into eating dinner with the Mullners, but Ty headed back inside, and after they’d eaten and everyone had gone out to admire the Winter Star lights now that the sun had set, they slipped back to Alex’s room.

Alex sat on the bed with his back against the headboard, and Ty paused to admire his boyfriend a moment before stretching out beside him. From down there on the mattress, Alex felt awfully far away.

“Come here,” Ty beckoned.

Alex immediately slid down next to Ty as if he’d been waiting for the invitation, and Ty rolled over to lay his head on Alex’s chest and hugged him in tight. He watched Alex trace light fingertips along his collarbone and down his arm, and when he reached Ty’s hand, Alex left his hand resting there with their palms together.

“Ty?”

“Mhmm?” Ty hummed contentedly.

“I just wanted to say I’m glad you’re… really affectionate and like a lot of hugging and stuff like I do.”

“Of course I do,” Ty laughed, “You’re my boyfriend.”

“I just… haven’t ever met someone else like that. I get clingy with that stuff in relationships, and I’ve seen it get to be too much for some people. Just, promise you’ll tell me before it gets to that point, okay?” 

Ty frowned.

“I mean… I’d tell you, but I don’t think we’re more affectionate than normal.”

They seemed pretty typical compared to his other boyfriends, especially since they were still early days with their relationship, when things always tended to be more touchy-feely. 

“Really?” Alex laughed, “I think in the last few weeks I’ve already had more hugging and holding hands and kissing-that’s-not-making-out than in any of my other relationships! And even then, my girlfriend in the tenth grade said being with me was like dating a girl.”

Ty was so taken aback by this he was at a loss for words. To hear that Alex had been told his affection was something to be stifled – that all those kinds of touch and connection had been rebuffed enough to make Alex feel like he was too much and not enough, broke Ty’s heart.

“Okay, well that’s messed up. Anyone’s allowed to hug and hold hands and kiss. Straight people are just weird and repressed.”

“Says the one who liked a straight guy for four years.”

“That doesn’t count, you weren’t even straight! But, hey, look at me. Cishets say shit. Young people say shit. We can cuddle as much as we want.”

Ty scooted up and kissed Alex’s temple. Alex smiled and turned to kiss him back but Ty put a finger on Alex’s lips to stop him and sat up and straddled his thighs. He held Alex with a hand on each side of his face and planted a kiss on Alex’s nose, his forehead, a cheekbone, that chin dimple.

Alex laughed. “What are you doing?”

Ty kissed the top of Alex’s head. “Making – up – for lost – time,” he explained, punctuating each word with another kiss.

Alex wrinkled his nose, but the corner of his mouth twisted into a smile and he let Ty continue to cover his face in light kisses.

“Your forehead has been missing _years_ of kisses.” Ty said, trying to be light about it so he wouldn’t get outwardly emotional.

He dropped back down next to Alex and propped his head up on his hand.

“You can be as affectionate as you want with me, okay? I’ll tell you if I’m not in the mood and want to take a rain check. But I probably won’t, honestly, I don’t think I’ve ever hit a limit with that kind of stuff.”

Alex nodded and wrapped an arm around Ty again, and Ty did the same, chin resting on top of Alex’s head, and he thought he’d just about melt when Alex tightened his arms around Ty’s waist and he felt the light touch of Alex’s thumb brush back and forth at the small of his back.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi, I just need to see some t e n d e r n e s s and HEALING from harmful masculinities. Aka the chapter where I remembered I could write in as many forehead kisses into this thing as I desired because I’m the one driving the bus.
> 
> (Posting only one chapter again because I feel like we need some irl temporal separation between this chapter and the next, so literally ignore anything I ever say about my plans for chapter updates… But, yikes! Can’t believe we’re into single digits of the # of chapters left!)
> 
> So. Anyway… y’all ready for some… nsfw next update?? 😏😳


	29. Dive Play

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello, this one has a bit of nsf/w. Not really explicit – maybe, like… PG13, MA 15+ at most imo.
> 
> Additional chapter tags: lots of gridball, internalized ableism, longer discussion of body image issues/body dysmorphia/dysphoria.

The first month of winter had been mild, to Alex’s relief – he was grateful to have a bit more time to mentally prepare for navigating the town in heavier snow. But despite the icy temperatures and the town starting to wind down for the year, Alex had a hard time being quite as down about it as usual.

Today he was at Ty’s farmhouse, planted on the couch, listening to a lengthy conversation between Ty and Shane about chickens as they huddled around a notebook at the kitchen table.

Alex had no idea what they were talking about; the technical talk had gone over his head an hour ago, but watching Ty’s expression become focused and determined as he and Shane puzzled over something together was making Alex’s brain slow and dreamy. Ty pulled a pencil from behind his ear to add to something he and Shane had been mapping out in a notebook, his brow furrowed in concentration.

“Are you sure you only want the two void chicken eggs? You can have more.”

Alex had _said_ he was going to read something while they made whatever chicken-related plans they were plotting. Well. He did have a book in his lap. And it was open to a page.

But Ty was biting the end of his pencil, and standing and leaning onto the table, _and_ wearing a knitted sweater. Alex felt the back of his neck prickle with heat. And then Ty pushed his hair off his forehead and Alex had to look back down at the book for a while.

Too warm now, he took off his sweatshirt. Though aside from being a little more riled up than he should be from just watching his boyfriend in his element, Alex did appreciate how warm it was at Ty’s house compared to his own. The bills for PT and OT had started rolling in on top of the hospital bills, and money had been getting pretty tight at home. And he’d been feeling guilty lately whenever he was at Ty’s or Haley’s and he’d get a break from the cold. His grandparents didn’t really have anyone they could do that with, except maybe going to Pierre’s store, which definitely didn’t count. But, then again, if he ended up having a meal at someone else’s house, it meant more for his grandparents back home. Not that they ever went without – it was just… there were only so many times you could eat ‘carp surprise’ in a row before even thinking about it turned your stomach a little.

Ty put his arms around Alex’s shoulders, interrupting his thoughts, and dropped a kiss on the top of his head.

“What are you reading?”

Alex smiled up at him, putting his worrying about bills aside for the moment. “I have zero idea, Ty.”

He hooked his hand around the back of Ty’s neck to pull him around for a kiss.

“Oh, wait!” Alex interrupted the motion as he suddenly realized what day it was. “The game’s on. Anyone mind if I turn it on?”

“Oh, yeah, go for it,” Shane said.

Alex set the book aside, grabbed the remote and turned on the TV, which was already on the right channel from the last game he and Ty had watched a together. Luckily, they’d only missed the first ten minutes or so.

“Uh, you gonna circle back to that kiss or what?” Ty said, inches from Alex’s ear, still bent over the back of the couch.

“Oh. Sorry.” He tried putting a little extra into it to make up for getting distracted by gridball in the middle of kissing his boyfriend.

Ty ruffled his hair – or whatever the shaved-head version of that was – and settled in next to Alex on the couch, Alex’s legs across his lap. (Sometimes his favorite thing about being Ty’s boyfriend was all the small, casual ways they’d be in contact with each other.)

Shane came over and sat on the opposite side of the couch as a pass to the other team’s wide receiver was intercepted by the Tunnelers’ cornerback.

“No? They aren’t gonna comment on that one-handed pick?” Alex huffed. “Lucie’s so underrated.”

Shane scoffed. “ _Lucero?_ Are you kidding? How can he be underrated if all anyone talks about is how underrated he is?”

“Uh, maybe around here, but no one outside Tunnelers fans even knows who he is even though he’s absolutely a shutdown corner. And nobody acknowledges how well-rounded he is as a cornerback – he’s aggressive, he’s fast, he can jump, he’s always tracking the quarterback – he can actually play the ball and get in the end zone. I know it’s only his third season, but come on.”

Shane made a face. “Yeah, he’s a little too well-rounded – he’s good at all of it, I’ll give you that, but he isn’t _great_ at _any_ of it. And his man coverage…”

“It’s not always about the one-on-one coverage. And Lucero’s stats speak for themselves.” Alex crossed his arms.

“Believe me, you will not change his mind about this, Shane,” Ty interjected.

“Well, you better watch out for your boy. His contract’s up and the expansion draft is coming.”

“ _Don’t_ talk to me about it,” Alex cringed.

Shane made a noise of frustration at the screen. “They need to stop dicking around and just get it _done_. Come _on_.”

“Yeah, they have been pretty distractible by whatever the other team is doing this season,” Ty said.

Shane sighed. “Playoffs are gonna be a shit show, aren’t they?”

“At least they qualified this year,” Ty said.

“Well, that, and no, I don’t think it’s a sure thing they can’t have a good playoffs,” Alex defended. “Sure, it’s a young team this year, and we’ve got a rookie coach, but the season as a whole has been an upward trajectory. You can _tell_ they’ve been putting in the time they’re going to need to hold their own. You know, Goodwin could have just played it safe and said, ‘oh, this’ll just be a building year for the team, we can focus on actually trying to qualify for the playoffs next year’, but _no_ , he’s out there pushing the team and going for it.”

“Can you honestly say they’re playing like a playoffs team right now, though?” Shane said.

“I don’t know, I think they could turn it around. They’ve had some really great quarters last few weeks.”

“True,” Shane conceded, “I guess I can be cynical about them. But to be fair, my formative gridball years were during the Pacheco era.”

“Oh, that’s rough.”

“Ooh, I know this one!” Ty jumped in, “The shitty head coach from fifteen years ago with an inexplicably long tenure!”

“Yeah, good job!” Alex beamed.

“All right, I’m impressed. You’re learning.” Shane said.

They went back to watching the game, and Alex and Shane continued to debate the finer points of Tunnelers strategy and Ferngill Gridball League goings-on. Alex was finding himself impressed at Shane’s gridball knowledge, despite having incorrect opinions about basically everything. It was actually surprisingly satisfying. Teaching Ty about gridball was fun, especially now that he was starting to form his own opinions, but that wasn’t the same as talking with someone who _knew_ gridball. And Haley probably knew the game almost as well as Alex did, but her opinions were usually too similar to Alex’s for them to get into any really good arguments over anything. It was probably the most fun he’d had with gridball in a long while.

After the game ended – a loss, but they definitely pulled together as a team in the final quarter – Shane left, thanking Ty for the help with his chickens and calling for a continuation of his and Alex’s discussions the next Tunnelers game. As soon as the door shut behind him, Alex sat up and pulled Ty in closer. It felt like he’d been waiting to get his hands on him all day.

He traced a line up Ty’s neck with his nose, and Ty quickly cut him off with a deep kiss. Alex tested the waters, moving his hand up Ty’s side and then down again to rest on his hipbone, encouraged to continue by the sigh that turned into a hum at the back of Ty’s throat.

The physical stuff between them so far had been really good, and although Alex appreciated that Ty didn’t want him to feel rushed or pressured, Ty had been going _very_ slow, even for Alex’s nerves, and in the last few days, it had only left him wanting more.

Well, if Ty was waiting for Alex’s cue, then Alex wasn’t going to keep him guessing.

Alex slid his hand from Ty’s waist down to his knee as they continued kissing, and then began inching up his thigh again until Ty stopped Alex’s hand and pulled back, wincing apologetically.

“Okay, I’m going to get too turned on if we keep going, so, uh… we’re gonna have to cool it down a little if this is just going to be making out on the couch.”

Alex’s heartbeat was palpable. “I want to do more– if you do.”

“Oh? As in, like, you want to continue this in the bedroom…?” The way Ty was looking at him now almost made Alex forget he didn’t have the beach-ready body he used to.

Alex smirked in response, but he hadn’t noticed until that moment that it had already gotten pretty dark. He wasn’t about to assume he could sleep there, and the alternative was ending up having to navigate his way home after dark: the dirt road wasn’t his favorite in low light, even with the streetlamps, especially since he’d brought his wheelchair today.

“Wait, sorry – I didn’t realize how late it was. I _want_ to, but… I _should_ probably be heading out soon. I don’t want to be walking back too late.”

“But it’s already dark out,” Ty protested (and Alex couldn’t help feeling a little satisfied and relieved that Ty didn’t want him to leave). “And it’s freezing out there. And it’s nine-thirty. And,” Ty said, running his hand up Alex’s side, “You’re hot. You _could_ stay over.”

“All very good arguments.” Alex shook his head and grinned. “Yeah, okay.”

Ty smiled triumphantly and jumped up from the couch to stand in front of Alex expectantly, with Alex’s hands held loosely in his.

Alex laughed. “Can I use your phone first? I should let my grandparents know I won’t be back and make sure they don’t need anything.”

“Yeah, go for it.”

“Okay, pass me my crutches.”

Alex went over to the receiver on the wall and dialed in the number.

“I’m gonna go get ready for bed,” Ty said from the bedroom doorway.

Alex nodded and waited as the phone rang.

He knew he’d been angling for this practically all day but the thrill of excitement was still tinged with fluttering nerves.

After speaking with his Grandmother, Alex hung up and made his way to Ty’s room. Ty was already sitting on the bed, pulling on a sleep shirt.

“Hey, what are you doing that for?” Alex smirked as he dropped down next to Ty, who grinned back and didn’t hesitate in taking it off again.

Alex’s preparations were slower, but Ty waited patiently for him as he leaned his crutches against the wall and out of the way, fingers gliding along the small of Alex’s back while Alex unstrapped his AFO and helped his right leg up onto the bed. Almost immediately, Ty pulled Alex into a kiss.

“Wait, I left my wheelchair in the other room,” Alex groaned, annoyed at himself for forgetting in his haste. “Um, would you mind bringing it in here for me? I usually have to use it first thing after I wake up when my muscles are more stiff. It’s just, like… far away and I’d have to put my AFO on again…” he grimaced.

“Oh! No problem.”

“Thanks.”

Ty was back again in a few seconds to the several minutes Alex would have taken, and parked Alex’s wheelchair in the spot next to the bed Alex directed him to.

“Are the brakes on?”

“Yep.”

Ty climbed back in bed next to Alex.

“Wanna keep going?”

Alex nodded and smiled, letting their lips collide again.

With Ty’s warm hands on his back, Alex’s nerves melted away. Now he was dying to find out what Ty liked, where was he most sensitive, what made him come apart, what little things he would do to show he was into something. Alex wrapped his arms behind Ty’s head and pulled Ty down with him as he sank back into the mattress. He buried his fingers in Ty’s hair and the sigh Ty let out sent a tingling warmth throughout Alex’s body. His hands grazed down the sides of Ty’s jaw, down his chest and sides, and he settled them on Ty’s hips.

He ran a thumb over Ty’s hipbone, and Ty made another sound that immediately sent a shockwave through him and then Ty was moving down his neck. His rough jaw scraped against Alex’s collarbone, and Alex’s train of thought was completely derailed. Well, whatever he’d planned to do next, what he wanted right now was for there to be less clothing between them. He nudged Ty off of him so he could sit up, and Alex didn’t even mind when Ty helped him pull his shirt over his head.

When they rejoined, the feeling of their bare skin in contact across his whole torso was so warmly comfortable and electrifying at the same time.

“Woah, you’re hot.” Alex breathed, and Ty just kissed him harder. Ty’s hands seemed like they were everywhere at once. In some places, Alex’s skin felt hypersensitive, nerve endings maxing out with a single brush of Ty’s hand, while on his right side, some patches of skin barely felt a thing. It was a little disorienting. But all of this was.

Alex found himself sliding upward at the same time as Ty pressing down and – _Yoba,_ it had been so long since he’d felt this good.

His impulse was to roll over so he was the one on top of Ty, but then – what limb would he need to move first to get there? It would probably involve a least a few minutes of coordinating, which wasn’t exactly the hottest thing to be doing in the middle of all this, and then how long would he even be able to hold that position? Alex realized then that his right arm had fallen off from where it had been at Ty’s hip, and he hadn’t even noticed. It was just lying at his side.

His thoughts took this chance to interrupt him – was he doing this right? He had forgotten what his right side was doing, that it existed. How was he supposed to make sure it was good for Ty if he couldn’t get his body to cooperate with him and he couldn’t concentrate long enough to figure out from Ty’s reactions what he was into? Were you supposed to do different things with a guy? What if he did something weird or naïve and – oh no, Alex’s shirt was off…

Maybe he should have read more of that pamphlet?

“Wait,” Alex said, shutting his eyes. He didn’t want to see Ty’s reaction. Disappointment? Oh, Yoba, worse: relief?

He felt Ty pull away from him.

“You wanna stop?”

Alex hesitated. “Yeah,” he said in a small voice, keeping his eyes screwed shut, “Sorry.”

“It’s okay.”

Alex felt Ty shift and lie down next to him.

He opened his eyes and Ty’s expression was what he probably should have known – something soft, in between concern and reassurance.

Alex felt the now-familiar sensation of his body starting to feel less solid and pulled Ty’s arm over his chest. Ty’s thumb rubbed circles on his shoulder then stopped.

“Is that all right?” he asked.

Alex nodded quickly. He took a few deep breaths.

“I just… got thrown off.”

“It’s okay,” Ty said again, still rubbing his shoulder. “We don’t have to do anything.”

“I do want to. I just… didn’t think about how different everything is now. Like, my brain forgot my right side is even there… and… I keep getting worried I might do something wrong, because, you know, you’re a guy and I’ve never…” he looked away, heat rising to his face.

“Well, you definitely weren’t doing anything wrong,” Ty said smiling a little for a moment. “And I didn’t even notice anything about your right side. Maybe I’m just used to it,” he shrugged.

“But if I can’t _do_ anything properly with this whole half, then… how am I supposed to make it… good for you?” Alex’s frustration with himself flashed hot before evaporating into tired resignation.

“It _was_ good. Even if I did notice your right side, wouldn’t that take a lot of energy to have to keep thinking about it all the time? I want you to be able to enjoy yourself, too – I’m more than happy with whatever you can do, all right?”

Alex didn’t answer. He couldn’t really process a whole lot more than the overwhelming feeling that he was ruining what was meant to be a fun night.

Ty sighed heavily and dropped his head to the pillow. “Maybe we were kind of jumping in too quickly.”

“I don’t want to be like this. I don’t like being the one to slow us down. I feel like such a downer.”

“No, it’s not just you. There’s a lot going through my head– I guess I’m nervous, too.”

“Really?” Alex couldn’t imagine what Ty had to be nervous about.

Ty nodded.

“About what?”

His eyes flicked away revealing a self-consciousness Ty rarely betrayed outwardly. “I think I’ve been putting pressure on myself that I have to make it _‘amazing’_ for you or something – I don’t want your first time having sex with a guy to be bad… It’s supposed to be _hot_ and _fun_ , and I feel like I should be– I don’t know, swooping in with all my gay sex ‘ _experience’_ and make _‘magical gay sex times’_ happen, and I start getting in my head. I don’t want to push you too fast and make you uncomfortable either, or move the wrong way and hurt you by accident.”

“Well, as long as you don’t pull on my arm, you can’t really hurt me more easily than anyone else. You can’t, like, give me another stroke.”

Ty’s eyes widened. “I didn’t even _think_ of that.”

“Okay, well I just said I _can’t_ have another stroke from sex, so don’t start worrying about it now.”

“Right, yeah. Yeah.”

“About the other stuff you were saying – I think I was more worried about making it good for you than expecting you to… what did you say? Make it magical… gay sex or whatever,” Alex said, trying not to smile at Ty’s choice of words.

“We’re overthinking it, aren’t we?”

Alex nodded and squeezed Ty’s arm to his chest.

When Alex had his first time with a girl, it was all awkward hands, bumping into each other, nervous laughter. It was both their first times. It hadn’t felt that important. It was high school. It was just for fun. With Ty, it felt different: they had so much history. Ty was so important to him; he didn’t want to think about what might happen if he messed it all up. But then again, why couldn’t it just be fun?

_Because you can’t move or think like a normal person anymore and you’re literally going to have to practice how to have sex now before you can actually try having sex._

He could understand if this, on top of everything else, was the tipping point of Alex being too much as a boyfriend.

Alex felt Ty watching him and when he turned, Ty’s eyes in the low light were a wide ink black you wanted to fall into, that reached out and pulled him in. Ty was looking back at him like there was nothing Ty wanted more than to see and know and figure out. Like Ty really did want to try to make this work with him the way he was right now.

“Ty?”

“Yeah?”

“I know this sounds weird, but you know how I had to learn how to do everything again in OT, like how to sit up in bed and hold a pencil and stuff?”

“I’m guessing they didn’t teach you how to get into positions for sex for two people with dicks, huh?”

“Yeah, no, they just sent me home with a pamphlet that pretty much just said ‘strokes affect people differently, figure it out’.”

“Helpful.”

“Not really, no.”

Ty shrugged. “Well, we’ve pretty much said ‘fuck it, we have no idea what we’re doing so let’s just do whatever we want’ to everything else so far.”

“Yeah, but I feel kind of bad making you… plan out sex with me. It sounds… awkward. Doesn’t that take the fun out of it?” Alex was sure his embarrassment was written all over his face.

“Hm… It could be kinda hot, don’t you think? You know, like, dirty talk or phone sex: talking about what you’re going to do?”

Alex was skeptical about this. “I’m probably going to be focused on what to do with my limbs, Ty,” he pointed out.

“That makes sense. But anyway, no, spending time working out how we want to have sex doesn’t bother me at all.”

“Okay.” Alex would just have to take his word for it until they actually got to that point.

“So, new plan, then: just try things little at a time and see how it goes.”

“What would we even do first?”

“Well, what’s one thing you like doing when you’re hooking up with someone?”

“Um… so, today– I don’t know, it’s not even, like, a sex thing I guess.”

“That’s okay.”

Alex searched Ty’s expression, but he just looked completely earnest and serious and interested. He told Ty about liking being on top of the other person sometimes and not being able to figure out how to get there.

“That sounds like something nice to try out first,” Ty said, and resumed rubbing Alex’s shoulder. “Maybe another time?”

Alex nodded again and for a while they just lay quietly together. But now that it felt like he was mostly in his body again, Alex was starting to feel overly exposed and bare.

“Um, could you hand me my shirt?”

“Yep.” Ty passed Alex his shirt. “You want me to turn up the heat?”

“Oh. No, it’s good,” Alex said, and pulled his shirt back on.

He didn’t know if it was more emotionally exhausting to talk about what was bothering him or not to right now. He sighed as he slumped back onto the pillows. Spilling his guts was winning out.

“So… I know you… know what I look like and everything, but… It used to be easier back when I used to be able to work out to feel like… the other person was attracted to me?” Alex let out a frustrated exhale. “Yoba, I hate being all insecure like this.”

“You definitely don’t have to worry about being attractive to me.” Again, Ty’s expression was completely earnest, and that mischievous quirk of his mouth was back.

Alex didn’t want to admit how much insecurity he was feeling about his appearance. What he _did_ want was to hear Ty explain more about _what_ he found attractive about Alex – it was hard to get himself to believe a sweeping statement like ‘you don’t have to worry’ if there was room for his imagination to worry. But asking Ty to do that was a little much, even for Alex.

“You don’t look like you believe me,” Ty said, and rolled onto his side.

“Well,” Alex thought about how to respond. “You did say you had started having feelings for me back when I… looked really different.”

“I really actually don’t care about guys being super buff or anything, I promise. I know you used to work really hard at the gym all the time, but I don’t even think you do look very different than you used to? And I mean, your arms are pretty jacked from using your wheelchair,” Ty added, tracing a finger up Alex’s bicep.

“ _‘Jacked’_ is pretty generous,” Alex replied gloomily, “And not my right arm.”

“Look. You’re hot. That’s just the facts.” Ty held the sides of Alex’s face as if drilling it into him.

“Umm, I’m sorry, I can’t understand your accent?”

“ _Youuuu’rrre hooottt,_ ” Ty dragged out the syllables, smiling as he tightened his arm around Alex’s shoulders.

Alex cracked a smile. “Whatever.”

“You don’t have to look like you spend twenty hours a week at the gym to be attractive.”

“Well, you might be the only one, but okay.” Alex didn’t mention that this time last year, his gym routine had added up to several more hours a week than that.

“Babe. I am _definitely_ not.”

“Okay, you’re not allowed to make fun of me for saying ‘bro’ if you’re gonna say _‘babe’._ ”

“Shh, I’m making a point,” Ty laughed putting a finger to Alex’s lips, “But really, look. Mayor Lewis and Marnie have, like, a _thing_ , and they aren’t supermodel bodybuilders.”

“Ugh, we are _not_ talking about Marnie and Lewis screwing.”

“Right, sorry. But, tell me you get what I’m saying. _I_ don’t look like that, and you want to kiss my face.”

“Yeah... well, it doesn’t apply to _other people_.”

He knew he was being childishly stubborn at this point.

“Just you?”

Alex crossed his arms and nodded his head, knowing he must look exactly like a pouting child knowing an argument was lost but not willing to cede the point.

“You don’t have to be whatever some muscle magazine says is ‘perfect’ to be… perfect?”

“That’s… _so corny_.”

“ _Alex,_ ” Ty admonished.

Alex sighed. “Yeah, I guess so. I don’t totally believe it yet. But I’ll keep trying.”

“Okay,” Ty said gently, reaching up and running his hand along Alex’s shaved head.

“I guess you’ll just have to keep telling me how hot I am,” Alex said, keeping a straight face.

“I can do that,” Ty replied, with unwavering eye contact. Alex finally laughed and Ty smiled and rolled his eyes and kissed him hard on the cheek.

They laughed, and they held each other, and they talked, and Alex fell asleep with Ty at his back, feeling mushy and safe, enveloped in Ty’s strong arms.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I could probably sit on this chapter and tweak it indefinitely, but making myself post it since I've had a good portion of it fleshed out since, like, March and I need to stop haha :) Also, fun fact, the placeholder title for this chapter was “Void Chickens and Intimacy” for a very long time
> 
> (P.S. – gridball convo loosely inspired by conversations with my sister-in-law and wife about Nicklas Backstrom if that means anything to anyone here lmao…)
> 
> Oof, I only have 6 chapters left to finish writing... 👀 See you at the next update! <3


	30. I-Formation

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Additional Chapter Tags: injuries, descriptions of disordered exercise thoughts and behaviors *tw*, body image issues, disordered food attitudes implied, discussions about ableism, internalized ableism/sanism.

“I would _literally_ kill a man for a bag of those cactus fruit candies right now,” Ty groaned, and let himself fall limply across Alex’s bed.

“Ty, has anyone told you you’re a little dramatic?” Sebastian said from his perch on Alex’s desk.

“Okay, but _actually_. You guys wanna go to Oasis? There’s totally a bus that leaves in forty-five minutes. I haven’t been out to see Sandy in ages either.”

“Can’t,” Alex said, “That bus doesn’t have a wheelchair lift, and crutches… hurt a lot right now.”

“Oh no, what happened?” Ty asked, sitting up straight. He was surprised Alex hadn’t mentioned anything to him about it before now, though he supposed now that he thought about it, he had noticed Alex favoring his leg to propel his wheelchair more than usual the last few days.

“I’m just having some wrist and shoulder issues.” Alex said nonchalantly, eyes suddenly expressionless. Ty could practically see the wall go up behind his eyes. And, yes, Ty noticed that time that Alex did only use his leg as he turned in the direction of the window.

He shot a glance towards Sebastian, who was giving Ty a look that said Alex was raising the same flags for him as he was for Ty.

“Ohh-kay then.” Sebastian said skeptically.

Alex didn’t respond.

“Is… everything good?” Ty asked.

“ _Yeah_ ,” Alex said, with a blatant undercurrent of defensiveness, his composure gone as fast as it had come on. If he was trying to hide that anything was off, he was doing an awful job.

Sebastian stood and leaned back against the desk, arms crossed. “I hate to say this, but you’re being sketchy as fuck, dude.”

Alex traced nonexistent shapes on the arm of his wheelchair with his pointer finger. Sebastian and Ty waited to see if Alex was going to say more, exchanging another look. Ty thought he knew where this was going, but he hoped he was wrong.

Alex scrubbed his face in his hands and slumped back, still not looking at either of them. “Okay,” he said finally. “Yeah. I messed up trying to lift again.”

Ty’s heart sank. That was, in fact, what he’d been afraid of. “What do you mean? Did you hurt yourself? Are you okay?”

“Yeah, I’m okay – I think I just did something to my rotator cuff. And then yesterday I fell _just_ trying to do a dumbbell snatch on my _good_ side, and–” Ty stood to for a better view as Alex leaned forward and lifted up his shirt in the back to expose a swollen purple-red bruise that spread from Alex’s lower back by his hipbone and disappeared under his waistband. Ty winced just looking at it, and he heard Sebastian suck air in through his teeth.

“Alex…”

Ty was flooded with that helpless feeling he hated. And he felt guilty. Ty spent enough time with Alex – why hadn’t he been able to catch that Alex had been struggling with this again? 

It suddenly clicked now, why, even now that Ty was trying to be even more conscious about not overdoing it when they were together and trying to meet at Alex’s house more, Alex was still having more days spent in bed than usual. 

“I guess it’s not _that_ bad. I _was_ trying to be careful this time. I just keep forgetting how weak I am now.”

“It kind of does sound that bad, Alex,” Sebastian said in a gentle tone.

Alex turned back towards them with a painfully remorseful, ashamed expression that hit Ty in the chest.

“I’m sorry.”

“Why are you sorry?” Sebastian asked.

“I let you down.”

“I don’t feel let down.”

“Me neither. I’m just worried about you, Alex,” Ty added.

Sebastian nodded in agreement.

“I’m sorry,” he said again, “You’ve both been going out of your way to help keep me busy so I didn’t injure myself again and I just… did it anyway. I’m a terrible friend and a terrible boyfriend.” He looked miserable, arms crossed and sunk down in his seat.

“Hey, we would have done all that anyway,” Sebastian said, “I honestly forgot that’s why we were hanging out the same day every week.”

Alex paused at this and looked at Sebastian out of the corner of his eyes. “Really?”

“Shit, yeah, Alex, we like spending time with you. Abby and Sam said they liked hanging out with you the other day. I’m gonna take a guess that Ty kinda likes spending time with you, too. We’re not annoyed or anything that just trying to keep busy isn’t enough to not end up getting hurt lifting weights. We care more whether you’re okay.”

“That’s true,” Ty said.

Alex sighed. “Okay.” His shoulders sagged dejectedly. “I guess… I’m not sure what to do now. I just feel like… I don’t know _how_ to stop myself sometimes. But, um… last time – you guys were helpful… with thinking of ways to stop….”

“You wanna do that again?” Sebastian asked.

“Yeah. I don’t even know what to try, though.”

“Well, you do have a lot of workout stuff in here.” Sebastian said. “It must be hard not to want to use it.”

Alex took a slow breath, nodding, and seeming increasingly overwhelmed as he looked around his room.

“Would it help to not have it all in your room?” Ty asked. He was a little wary of suggesting anything, knowing that he could be straying too close to that unhealthy place of trying to deal with not knowing how to help Alex by trying to be overly helpful, but he didn’t _think_ this was going too far.

Alex laughed drily. “There wouldn’t be anything left.”

“You don’t have to completely get rid of everything, just, if there’s anything you don’t want in arm’s reach in case you feel like doing something that might hurt you, we can get it out of arm’s reach, yeah?” Sebastian said.

“That’s… probably a good idea. I don’t think any of the reasons to keep it in here are very good ones.”

“Why don’t I ask Gus if he has a spare box or two and we can put the stuff you don’t want in there,” Sebastian suggested. “We don’t have to decide what to do with the box right away–”

“I’m just going to throw it out.”

Sebastian frowned. “You don’t think you’ll ever want to use any of it again?”

“I… can’t.”

“You know that people in wheelchairs can still do sports and stuff, right?” Sebastian asked, sitting again on the bed.

“I don’t mean like that. It’s like… I don’t think I know how to do sports or working out like a… normal person – where it’s just casual. Like, in high school I had girlfriends – multiple girlfriends – break up with me because they said I spent too much time with training and gridball practice.” Alex looked down at his hands. “And I think I got a little out of control in the last few years with working out. And not ‘out of control’ like ‘over the top,’ but like, ‘actually not in control of what I was doing anymore’. I barely thought about anything else. I guess since I can get injured so much more easily while I’m still building up strength and muscle memory again, I don’t want to put myself in that position where I could really get hurt. I just need to get rid of all of it for now.”

Ty hadn’t known any of this. Sure, he’d thought Alex could get a little obsessive about going to the gym sometimes, but he never knew it went that far. When Alex had injured his shoulder before, Ty had thought it was more about getting out his energy and not knowing what to do with his time, but now it seemed more serious. Ty felt even worse about never noticing anything was wrong with how long it had been a problem.

Ty put his hand on Alex’s shoulder. He wished he knew what to say. He felt very out of his depth.

But Sebastian was already speaking. “Sorry. I didn’t know.”

“It’s okay,” Alex said flatly. “I never told anyone.”

“Well, I know it sounds corny, but I’m glad you’re telling us now,” Sebastian said, and stood. “Okay. If you need to get rid of it, we’re gonna help.” 

Alex was blinking fast as he nodded.

“How ‘bout I get those boxes now?” Sebastian pulled a beanie out of his hoodie pocket that he shoved on his head, and pulled on his boots – the only two items of winter clothing he tolerated. “I’ll be right back.”

Ty sat back down on the bed and offered Alex his hand. Alex moved closer until they were knee to knee and held Ty’s hand on his lap.

He made a noise of frustration and pulled his hands away, crossing his arms again. “I feel so stupid. Stupid and weak… I should have more willpower. If I don’t want to do it, I should just _not do it_. I maybe really messed up my shoulder over something so embarrassing… Like, am I really that obsessed with how I look?”

Ty blinked. There wasn’t any part of this that made it seem like this was all about his appearance. “Well, that’s not really, like… the only reason it seems like?” he ventured.

Alex looked like he’d rather not be examining that right now, but he answered. “I don’t know. Probably. Maybe it’s… I guess just the same old stuff about hating being such a burden on my family and everyone. And sometimes I think about what they said at the hospital about how you have to keep active or you could keep losing function, and I know my mind takes it too far, but I’ll just be reminded about something I can’t do and I’ll feel really weak and– um– and scared, like, what would I do if one of my grandparents fell, or it snowed a couple feet and Sam or whoever forgot to come shovel the snow, or if we run out of savings before my pension gets approved – or it gets denied, or, like… anything. There’s a million things that could happen and I couldn’t do anything about it.

“I used to get scared about not being able to take care of my grandparents and provide for them all the time, and working out was the only thing I knew how to do to anything about it. It felt like I was doing something practical because I was working on going pro. Even though I wasn’t obviously. But I don’t know, I think part of it really is about feeling like I need to be weightlifting for you to be attracted to me, even though I know you said you don’t mind." Ty nodded affirmingly at this. "It’s a lot of things I guess… and working out’s the only way I really learned how to deal with stuff.” Alex took Ty’s hands again. “I’m sorry. I think I just didn’t talk about everything for so long it’s all just coming out at once.”

“No, it’s okay. I want to listen .” Ty took a breath, trying to make it sound more steady than he felt. “I just wish I knew how to be more supportive. I wish there was something I could do.”

“ _I_ don’t even know what could be helpful for me,” Alex said. “But just being around you is… You reassure me and calm me down and even when my thoughts start telling me I’m not good enough for you, you make me feel like maybe I don’t have to prove myself to you, or be anything else than how I am right now… Like, when I’m around you, I start to think, maybe I don’t _need_ to work out to solve my problems, and there are other options. And I don’t think you know how many people would just say I _should_ be trying build up my strength and brush it off, or get freaked out and say I’m completely crazy.”

Ty squeezed his hands. “I’m glad. I want to be here for you even if you don’t know what I can do. Tell me if there is something you think of, though, okay?”

Alex nodded and they sat together for a moment, Ty trying to process everything he’d heard.

“So, um – do you think it would be helpful to… talk with someone more about this? Like a counselor or something?”

“No, I think I’m just going to work on it myself. I don’t know. I’ll think about it.”

“Can I ask… what _would_ be the point where you would need more help? I don’t want to overreact, but… I don’t know… This is kind of scary for me already.”

Alex seemed to be wrestling with something for a minute before speaking. “I think… If I try to work out again, I’d have to admit… I was back at a place where I wasn’t in control anymore,” Alex answered slowly.

“Okay. And do you think you’ll tell someone about it if it does happen again?”

“Yeah. Because I don’t _want_ to feel like working out will fix it when I start feeling like I’m a burden and weak and like you won’t be attracted to me unless I look like I used to. I’m just sick of it."

Ty nodded. “Would it be okay for me to check in with you on how you’re doing with this?”

Alex nodded slowly. “Yeah. I think that would help, too.”

They turned when a soft knock came at the door, and Sebastian entered the room, encumbered by a large cardboard box, smaller wooden crate, and two boxes of pizza.

“Meat lovers’ and jalapeño pineapple,” he announced, before setting the boxes out on Alex’s desk.

“Thanks,” Alex said, swiping a slice of meat lovers’. “You two are freaks, though.”

“Hey, Ty was the one who corrupted me,” Sebastian said, holding up his hands in defense.

Ty shrugged unapologetically. “My friends and I ordered it as a joke one time in high school after we’d been playing Solarian Chronicles for like five hours straight and never looked back.”

“Okay, but who was the one that started the joke?” Alex said.

“I decline to answer that question.”

After they’d refueled, Ty stood up and set the empty boxes down in the middle of the floor.

“So. The weights first?”

“Yeah,” Alex replied, and there didn’t seem to be any regret or hesitancy left. “You can just put them in the box.”

Ty did. “What else is there?”

“Let’s get rid of as much as possible. I just want a blank slate in here. I need a reset.” Alex stretched over to pick his gridball helmet up off the floor. He held it in his lap for a moment before placing it in a box.

Wow. So, Alex was really serious about this.

Ty and Sebastian helped Alex scour his room for anything he didn’t want or shouldn’t be using anymore. The boxes quickly filled with magazines, protein bar recipes, assorted sports balls, shoulder pads, numerous sneakers that didn’t fit his AFO...

Alex tossed in a large bag of protein powder he’d spotted under the bed.

“What about these gentlemen?” Sebastian gestured at the posters of bodybuilders and Tunnellers players on the walls.

Alex barely glanced up as he dug through a desk drawer. “Toss them.” He pulled several large elastic bands, a pair of grip strengtheners, and more packets of protein shake powder out of the drawer and passed them to Ty to add to the pile in the middle of the room.

“You planning on keeping the wallpaper?” Sebastian asked.

“Yeah. It was my mom’s actually.”

“That’s really cool. She was into gridball, too?”

“Yeah, She’s the one that really taught me to love it.” He sighed. “I always felt like I’d be letting her down if I gave up on going pro, but… I know she wouldn’t want me to do anything that didn’t make me happy.”

Alex looked around.

Ty surveyed the room, too, and realized they’d run out of things to add to the boxes.

“Well, if you’re sure you want to get rid of this stuff for good, I can put it in my shipping box – and I’ll give you whatever cash they give me for it tomorrow.”

“All right,” Alex said. “I know you hate throwing things away,” he added with a small smile.

“Sorry. Can’t help it,” Ty smiled back sheepishly. “Wanna go now?”

Alex shook his head. “No. I think I want to be alone for a while.”

“Okay,” Ty said, and rubbed Alex’s back.

“I can go down with you. I’m just gonna get a head start for a smoke,” Sebastian said, and grabbed the crate. “Let me know if you wanna talk before Wednesday, okay?” he said to Alex.

Alex nodded.

As Sebastian shut the door behind him, Ty bent and kissed Alex’s forehead, and Alex hugged him in by the hips. Sitting on the bed, Ty hugged him back, and he could tell both of them were clinging to the other a little.

“Sure you’ll be okay?”

“Yeah. And– thanks again Ty.”

Ty squeezed Alex a little tighter before pulling back. “I’ll see you tomorrow, okay?”

They said their goodbyes and Ty returned to his farm with Sebastian and put Alex’s old equipment in his shipping box as promised.

He kept himself busy with the backlog of noncritical chores around the farm that had been piling up, and chopped wood until his back and arms were aching and his wood storage was full. He ended the day sitting with his animals. Ty knew all he could do was listen to Alex and try to be there for him however he could be, but it was still hard to see him struggle and not be able to do anything about it. He reminded himself Alex didn’t want him to feel guilty, and that no matter how much guilt he had, it wouldn’t change anything. He also wished he could just have Alex in his arms right now, but it was probably more to comfort himself than to be there for Alex, if he was being honest.

Ty was about to settle into bed when the phone rang, and Alex asked him in a small voice if Ty could stay over. Boots and coat over pajamas, Ty was out the door in a minute, and, wordlessly, they climbed into bed together and held each other as they slept until morning.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading <3 
> 
> Just leaving this here in case it’s helpful for anyone (in the US):  
> NEDA’s helpline “for support, resources, and treatment options for yourself or a loved one.”  
> Call or text (800) 931-2237  
> Call: Monday - Thursday 11am-9pm ET,  
> Friday 11am-5pm ET  
> Text: Pilot hours Monday - Thursday 3pm-6pm ET  
> (Disclosure: I’ve been in treatment for EDs but I haven’t used NEDA’s helplines specifically)


	31. Strip Sack

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Additional Chapter Tags: depression, chronic illness.

_Come on, you can get up. Just get out of bed. You’ve barely done anything the past three days. Not enough to earn a whole day in bed._

It had even been over a week since worked out at all.

Self-pity and loathing and hopelessness were crowding his head. There was no reason for him to be this exhausted right now and there was no reason for him to be this depressed right now. Things were going okay. He had friends, his boyfriend, his family who loved and supported him; his health; a roof over his head.

_That’s not how it works_ came Ty’s voice in his head.

Alex urged himself again to sit up, do anything; sometimes just getting over the hurdle of getting out of bed was enough to salvage the day. But every time he even thought about moving with the intention of doing something with the day, some sort of mental block weighed him down again. He tried one more time to move just his arm, or his hand, or his finger, but they were so heavy and neither his brain nor his body were going to budge if it meant getting out of bed. 

Was today was the day he was supposed to meet up with Haley or was it someone else? He couldn’t remember.

Alex rolled over in bed, pulled the quilts over his head and shut his eyes again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sometimes things are just shitty for no reason :/
> 
> Okay, one, I am Very excited for the SDV update and cannot wait for it to come out on switch.
> 
> Two, I just saw this for the first time:  
> theyetee.com/collections/stardew-valley/products/bachelor-love-letter  
> and Alex with the flowers killed me and also made me gayer.
> 
> Also, a couple comments have made me consider posting some sort of master-list of links to sources I used for the medical/disability portions of this fic, if anyone might be interested. Does anyone know a good site for something like that? I'd rather not give out my email address if it was in a google drive document or anything like that, but I’m not super knowledgeable about other ways to post a big list of links that other people can access (it would probably be like a couple dozen links at least). Possibly a one-off Tumblr? Idk, let me know if you have any ideas...


	32. Contract Negotiations

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Additional Chapter Tags: food insecurity, financial stress, implied homophobia, internalized homophobia, medical system/government agencies being bad at doing what they're supposed to be doing.

Alex stared down at the envelope in front of him. _You got this_ , he repeated to himself. _You can open a letter._

The Ferngill Republic seal printed next to the return address stared back at him. Alex held his breathing steady.

“Everything okay, Alex?” his Grandma asked, coming up behind him at the kitchen table to put her hand on his shoulder.

“Yeah, it’s just– a letter.”

It had arrived two days ago and Alex still hadn’t opened it. When he tried on the first day, he’d had an actual panic attack for the first time in weeks. It probably had something to do with his pension and he didn’t know what they would do if it was a denial letter. Especially with the extra bill he’d earned with imaging for his shoulder injury. The waiting alone was mentally and emotionally exhausting. He wasn’t sure if he could take it if he’d have to go through the poking and prodding and invasive questions and paperwork and doctor’s appointments and phone calls all over again if he was denied.

With his Grandma standing over him, though, it seemed silly to be freaking out over opening an envelope. There was no way of knowing if this was even about his pension application.He Alex breathed in deep and forced himself through the motions of tearing the letter open.

_The documents provided by Grampleton Physical Therapy Associates could not be processed as there is no Ferngill Disability Pension application associated with this citizen._

Alex’s heart sank and his chest began to clamp down on itself.

This was somehow worse than being denied; then at least he knew they could appeal it. But there wasn’t even an application on file for him? They’d have to start all over again from the beginning?

“I can’t do this anymore, Grandma, we just need to give up.” Alex slumped forward with his head on the kitchen table. His grandmother took the letter from his hand and looked it over, eyebrows creasing in concern as she read it over. “Like, money sucks right now, but it could be worse, right? And maybe there _is_ a job I could figure out how to do.”

“Give it here,” his Grandpa called from across the room, and his Grandma brought it over. He peered at the letter.

“There’s your problem.”

He held it up to his wife, pointing at the top.

“Oh! George, you’re right!”

“What?” Alex sat up as his grandmother brought the letter back over.

He squinted at the line she was pointing to, waiting for his brain to catch up and process what it said.

“Oh, for– I haven’t used that name since I was _fourteen_!”

Displayed on the letter was Alex’s name with his father’s surname. He had begged his grandparents to let him change it to Mullner since he’d moved in with them. They had finally given in and agreed that he could change it before starting high school, and the minute his last day of middle school let out, he’d dragged them both to the city to submit the paperwork. But it had been so long since any name-mismatch issues had come up Alex never thought twice about it anymore.

“I’ll call the office,” his Grandpa grumbled, matter of fact.

Alex looked on, bewildered, as his Grandpa sat on hold with the physical therapists’ office. Alex could barely remember ever seeing him jump into action like that.

“How did this even happen? Why did the PT office even have my old name?” Alex wondered aloud.

“You went there for that knee thing– from gridball– in the sixth grade,” his Grandpa answered, to Alex’s surprise.

“Oh. Yeah. Forgot about that.” It was somehow strangely touching that his Grandpa had remembered that right away.

Alex had been vaguely aware that the time it was taking to process his application seemed to be stretching out a lot longer than they’d initially been led to expect, but he’d just chalked it up to your standard bureaucratic delays. Maybe it _would_ just be a simple fix and everything would be sorted out and approved. Maybe he’d be approved the first time (it would be more than a little ridiculous if he wasn’t, wouldn’t it?). And then maybe, at some point, living would get a little more manageable. He’d never say anything to his grandparents, but Alex was really getting sick of potato-parsnip soup and carp surprise. And it would be nice to not have to wear multiple sweatshirts inside. And to stop getting increasingly red and bolded and underlined warnings about bills in the mail.

When his Grandpa had been assured that the PT office was going to send Alex’s records again with the right name this time, and had gone to lie down for his afternoon nap, Alex joined his Grandma on the couch. She was deep into a knitting project that looked like a sweater for his Grandpa.

“Hello, Alex,” she said, smiling as she looked up at him from her knitting. “Care to be my yarn-holder?”

Alex took the skein from her and held it in his lap. He picked out the loose end and started unravelling the yarn from its loose pre-packaged bundle out of childhood habit.

“That was weird,” Alex said, wrapping the yarn around his fingers to start winding it into a ball.

“What was, dear?”

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen Grandpa move that fast before.”

“Hm.” His grandmother’s face was unreadable. “I think your grandfather has been looking for a way to make it up to about how he reacted when you told us you and Ty are an item now.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, I get the sense that he feels bad for needing some time to adjust to the idea, and you know your grandfather: he isn’t going to just come right out and say it. I don’t think he knows how to say he feels differently now.”

“He does? I wish he would _tell_ me like a normal person,” Alex complained.

“I think he tries in his own way. But it isn’t easy for him.”

Alex hadn’t noticed he’d stopped winding the yarn into its ball, but he let it rest in his lap anyway.

“So, he’s not… disappointed in me?”

“No, of course not.”

She laid aside her knitting to slide over closer to him and put her arm around his shoulders. Alex reached over and pulled her into a hug, which she returned with her usual formidable grip. He rested his chin on her shoulder.

“Would… Would mom have been disappointed in me?” he asked quietly. Alex almost hoped she wouldn’t hear him.

“Oh, Alex.” His Grandma pulled back to look at him, and to Alex’s surprise, she was tearing up. “No dear, not at all,” she repeated, and pulled him tightly back into their hug.

“She really wouldn’t care that I’m with a guy?”

Alex always felt guilty at having to ask questions about his mom – shouldn’t he remember? – but this was one that had been slowly taking up more space at the back of his mind. Not knowing what his mom would have said if she knew – the doubt had slowly built up until it ached to wonder about it. All his recollections of her were of how loved and important she made him feel, and in his memories, it felt unconditional. But she must have grown up hearing the same things Alex had heard his Grandpa say about two guys being together. What if that’s what she’d believed too?

He had spent his life trying to live up to an image that honored her memory – that she’d be proud of. But maybe it didn’t matter what he did because _he_ as a person was just not quite right and normal on a basic level.

“ _No._ She would be so proud of you every day, Alex.”

Tears he didn’t know he had were suddenly spilling down his cheeks.

“So proud,” his Grandma continued, rocking them gently side to side. “All Clara wanted was to see you healthy and happy. And anyone can see how happy Ty makes you.”

She held on to him as they cried, until both their backs were too sore to stay like that, and then she let him go and grabbed tissues for both of them.

All Alex wanted to do right now was ball himself up on the couch under a blanket for the rest of the evening. He turned to his grandmother again.

“We’re gonna be okay, aren’t we?”

She gave his hand a squeeze and smiled reassuringly. “We’re going to be okay.”

Alex nodded and tried not to sound too pathetic as he grabbed another tissue and blew his nose. He felt small and damp and messy, and childish at how much he needed those meaningless words of consolation.

“Tonight seems like a good night for some take-out from the Saloon,” his Grandma said, surprising Alex. “This is one of those times that calls for a little dip into my secret rainy-day jar.”

Alex sniffed. “Grandpa’s gonna complain about spending money.”

“Oh, let him complain,” she said with a wave of her hand, and went over to the phone on the other side of the room. “Now, what do you want, dear?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks as always for reading! Can't believe how close to the end we're getting! :o <3  
> Also, more nsf/w next chapter :)


	33. Hurry-up Offense

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just 3k words of the boys being horny tbh
> 
> Additional Chapter Tags: non-explicit sex, mild soft d/s stuff (and, uh... praise kink I guess if you want?), brief medical stuff (implied/referenced surgeries).

Ty was a little mesmerized by the sight of Alex coming towards him, fresh out of the shower, to where Ty was sitting on George and Evelyn’s couch.

“Wow, I am very gay – possibly gayer than thirty seconds ago,” Ty said, appreciating the long-sleeved Henley Alex knew full well _did things_ to Ty, and track pants that settled low on his hips.

Alex rolled his eyes like Ty wasn’t being a hundred percent serious right now. He joined Ty on the couch, set his crutches aside, and lay his head in Ty’s lap.

It had been a good few days for Alex. He’d been cleared by his doctor to use his crutches around the house after a few weeks of various physical therapy exercises they were letting him do at home. Alex had been able to keep himself from working out since he got rid of all his sports equipment, but he was back to having to figure out what to do with the displaced energy. On the plus side, he did seem to have more energy from day to day, but, for now anyway, it was hard to do much with that extra energy because he was still recovering from his injury. He had, though, taken to meeting up with Haley every other morning in the time before Ty finished up his morning routine on the farm. Ty could tell it wasn’t easy for him, but Alex seemed to be taking it in stride on the whole.

Alex had also gotten a letter saying whichever appropriate government agency had finally received all the documentation they needed for his pension application and that his case was now being reviewed. Hopefully within ‘thirty to sixty days’, if everything went the way it was supposed to, Alex would receive the decision on whether his pension application was approved. From what Ty had observed about the process so far, he couldn’t say he was particularly optimistic about this timeline, but he didn’t voice this to Alex. The news didn’t relieve all of Alex’s anxieties, but it definitely helped to have any vague indicator that this state of in-between had an eventual end.

Alex sighed heavily. “I feel weak... I need some protein.” His hand lay across his eyes, as if he might perish at any minute from his state of deprivation.

“Are you asking me to cook you some salmon?” Ty said, and let his hand rest on Alex’s chest affectionately.

Alex shook his head and continued to look exaggeratedly forlorn.

“A steak?”

Alex’s eyes narrowed as he peered at Ty from between his fingers. “Maybe.”

“I could stop by Pierre’s and see what they have.”

“ _No,_ ” Alex sulked, half-serious this time. “You have to stay here and pet my head.”

“Hm, that might make it difficult to get you some protein. I wouldn’t want us to have an emergency on our hands,” Ty replied, amused by whatever mood this was that Alex was in today, though he dutifully began rubbing Alex’s head.

Alex’s eyes closed, and his whole body melted into a contented puddle. Ty bent down and kissed his nose. He made to sit upright again, but Alex had looped his hand around the back of Ty’s neck, and was leading him back down into a soft and easy kiss. It was probably pushing what was decent for the middle of Alex’s living room, but Ty let his hand not occupied by petting Alex’s hair wander: down Alex’s chest, stomach, his sides, hip, back up to his chest. He tried to keep to firm, deliberate movements that were less likely than light touches to result in sensory overload for Alex.

Alex took a moment to sit up. His hands were either side of Ty’s face, and Ty mirrored him as Alex kissed him once, twice more, before his hands moved down to encircle Ty’s wrists. He gently pushed away.

“Okay, okay, my grandparents are home,” he murmured, eyes shifting towards the rest of the house.

“We could go to the bedroom,” Ty replied, giving a suggestive smirk.

“No, we are _not_ doing anything here – you are so loud.”

That was fair. Ty didn’t have any defense to that.

“My place then?”

Alex gave a short, displeased groan. “I _just_ showered.”

But his lips quirked in deliberation, likely weighing the amount of energy he had today against the pros of getting to fool around together and the cons of the trip out to Ty’s house.

“Okay,” he resolved. “If you bring me my muscle relaxers so I can take them before we head over.”

Ty nodded and made to stand to grab the medication from Alex’s nightstand, but Alex put his hand on Ty’s arm to stop him.

“ _And_ if you make me a burger,” he added decisively.

Ty thought his heart might explode with affection. He cupped Alex’s face and leaned in for another kiss, saw Alex’s eyes rise to the ceiling and mouth twitch in amused exasperation as Ty kissed his way around to the corner of Alex’s jaw.

“Before or after?” Ty asked, with his lips brushing the edge of Alex’s ear.

“ _After._ ”

Rushing over to Ty’s was more likely to wind up tiring Alex out and negate the entire point of them going in the first place, so Ty reigned himself in enough to walk across town like a respectable human being.

He strolled at a leisurely pace beside Alex, hands stuffed in his pockets.

“You know what happened yesterday?” Alex said.

“What?”

“My Grandpa taught me how to do a wheelie.”

_“What?”_

“I know. He was just like ‘come with me, I’m going to teach you something,’” Alex said, in a mock-gruff voice that was a decent imitation of George.

“That’s fucking amazing! I can’t even picture your Grandpa doing a wheelie.”

“Actually, you’ve probably seen him do it before – he said that’s how you get across uneven stuff like gravel or getting up a step or a curb.”

“Oh. I didn’t know that. But that’s chill that you guys got to bond over something.”

“Yeah, it was pretty cool. He helped me attach his old anti-tipper while I’m still learning, too,” Alex gestured over his shoulder. Ty now saw that there were two extra bars with tiny wheels at the ends attached to the back of his wheelchair.

“Well, anyway, I was practicing and I went into the Saloon in my wheelchair.”

“Oh, shit!”

“So, uh, I got you this.” Alex paused to pull a can out of the small bag attached to the underside of his wheelchair.

Ty’s face lit up.

“You brought me a Joja Cola!”

“Yeah,” Alex smiled, a little self-consciously.

“Even though you hate it!”

“Yeah.”

“Does this mean you have a crush on me?”

Alex snorted. “Yeah.”

“That’s not-straight,” Ty said, referencing the shorthand Alex had been using to refer to his not-otherwise-defined preferences.

“You’re not-straight.”

“Why would you think that?”

“I can’t even try thinking of some funny response to that, Ty, like, I am currently looking at the patch on your backpack that says, ‘support your local gay farmer.’”

“That could be about anyone.”

“Right. Definitely not about my city-slicker completely platonic friend who is _very_ straight.”

“Okay, _too far –_ you take that back!” Ty laughed as the farmhouse came into view.

Alex shot him a smug grin and sped ahead, leaving Ty to half-jog behind him to catch up.

Once they were inside, Alex decided he needed the burger right away – ‘ _I need my strength’_ – but as soon as they had eaten, he had practically dragged Ty into bed.

Ty gave Alex room to arrange himself comfortably and then climbed in, almost toppling onto Alex as he pulled Ty in after him. The next moment, Ty was caught in the surprisingly tight hold of Alex’s arms. Alex kissed him hard on the cheek, on his lips, and they were both laughing and tangled together and barely able to kiss each other through their joint grins. It reminded Ty of their first kiss, with all of the joy and release and desire and none of the nervous uncertainty.

Alex’s energy was infectious, and Ty was floating right with him. It was just so, so _good_ to see Alex lighthearted and happy – laughing at nothing, free with affection. Seeing him like this put into relief just how rare it was, even when Ty first knew him.

But soon the boyish levity, was replaced with something more restless, insistent. And then Alex’s fingers were nesting in Ty’s hair. His hand slid down to the nape of Ty’s neck and dragged him in close enough for Alex to start trailing kisses along his jawline and down his neck. Alex had been successfully curating a growing mental bank of the spots that involuntarily produced indecent, embarrassing, sounds from Ty, and he hit one such spot now, pressing a hard kiss into Ty’s collarbone, seeming to indulge in his enjoyment of Ty’s noisy response as he dragged his teeth across his skin. Ty grabbed his face and kissed him, hard. Already Ty was flushed and breathless and the only thought in his brain was that he needed _more_.

Alex must have been on the same wavelength, because he was shimmying out of his track bottoms and then grasping at the button on Ty’s jeans.

“What do you want?” Ty asked as he tossed his jeans aside along with Alex’s shirt. Alex just impatiently pulled him back in again like it had already been too long for their mouths to be apart.

Ty hummed a laugh through their kiss. “Okay, but do you want anything? Or just keep going like this?”

“Um…” Alex looked more preoccupied by the motion of his hands smoothing up Ty’s chest. “I wanna do more. I don’t care what. What do you wanna do?”

“Hm…” Ty crowded in close with another long, appreciative kiss. He hooked his fingers under Alex’s waistband. “Can I?” he smiled against Alex’s lips.

“Yes,” Alex breathed.

Fuck. There was literally nothing he wanted more than to have Alex in his mouth right now. Ty began kissing and licking his way down Alex’s torso.

“Ah– too much,” Alex said, his voice strained.

“Sorry,” Ty said, backing off right away. Alex’s lips pressed into a thin line and his eyes were glued to the ceiling.

So far in their experimentation, they had figured out Alex could be pretty sensitive, and if they went too fast or with too much friction when things started heating up, it tended to end quickly for him. (Though like anything else, if they took too long, Alex could run out of energy in the middle, sometimes without warning). Ty was always just happy to be doing whatever they ended up being able to do, but it was definitely a more frustrating learning curve for Alex.

“You’re good,” Alex replied after a breath, looking at Ty again, “Just wanna, you know, last more than five minutes since we came all the way out here?”

“Should I keep going?”

“ _Yes,”_ Alex replied emphatically, and gave a gentle push at Ty’s shoulder.

Ty bit back a smile and sank down between his knees, drinking in the soft exhales that Ty eventually teased into a scratchy groan. Alex’s hand slid down the back of Ty’s neck and under his t-shirt. Ty felt a tug at the neck of his shirt, and he sat back and discarded it in the direction of the laundry basket. When he turned his attention back to Alex, he had sat up a little higher against the pillows. Alex hooked his fingers in Ty’s.

“Come here,” Alex beckoned, his voice low.

Ty was on his lap in a second as Alex grabbed a condom from the side table and passed it to him (Ty didn’t let Alex tear them open with his teeth and the one-hand-open condoms they’d bought were taking _forever_ to ship). He held out the opened packet and Alex took the condom and rolled it onto himself.

Ty didn’t care if it was disgustingly sappy – he loved it like this, getting to see Alex’s reactions, look into his eyes, kiss him, lean in close and feel their skin against each other.

“More– forward, yeah,” Alex said, his hands guiding Ty’s hips. “Ah, fuck, that’s good.”

It was a welcome surprise to hear Alex ask Ty to do something differently for him that wasn’t just communicating that he needed to stop or that something was painful or tiring. So far, Alex had seemed reluctant to have too much of the attention on himself. Ty had followed his lead, wanting him to have the space to figure out if he just preferred it that way or if he was holding something back (and Ty couldn’t say he minded Alex’s sweet attentiveness…). But there was something different about today.

Alex had left his hands there on Ty’s hips and something about their steady, secure presence was making Ty’s heart race. His hair was sticking to his forehead with sweat. Alex’s hand left his hip and pushed the hair out of his face.

“You’re really beautiful like this.”

Ty gasped out a shaky laugh.

“You are,” Alex affirmed, and then his mouth was hot on Ty’s neck.

His mind emptied of anything but _Alex_ , all sensation, firing nerve endings; he was a shuddering mess. Ty clung to Alex with his elbows on Alex’s shoulders and arms curled up around his head.

Alex drew him in even closer. “A little slower?” the quiet request spoken against Ty’s ear.

Ty’s legs were starting to burn, and he adjusted so he could follow the pace of Alex’s hands at his hips.

“There you go.” Alex soothed.

It was so good to hear Alex tell him what he wanted. Ty just craved achingly badly to give Alex everything he asked for because he never asked. It filled Ty with pride at how far he’d come in such a short amount of time.

And Alex was still going – _“That’s really good.”_ He was telling Ty where to put his hands – _“You feel incredible.”_ It was setting sparks off in Ty’s head. _“You’re so good to me.”_ And then Ty was over the edge.

By the time they’d caught their breath, they lay in a sleepy tangle, both of them wiped out and collapsed into each other.

“That was really amazing. You’re really amazing,” Alex murmured drowsily, his fingers still coiled in Ty’s hair. He nodded off soon after to Ty rubbing his back.

Alex always fell asleep immediately after sex, to Ty’s continued amusement. It hadn’t even been twenty minutes, though, before Alex began stirring awake again. Ty had been absent-mindedly skimming his fingers along Alex’s skin as he slept, and he suddenly realized with embarrassment that he’d been tracing over the long, raised scar on his elbow. Alex had a matching one down his leg from where they’d had to hold his shattered bones together with metal plates and pins and screws after the accident. Ty pulled his hand back.

“Oh, um– sorry.”

“Hm?” Alex opened one eye and raised his head off the pillow. “Oh. I don’t mind,” he said, letting his head drop back down. “Guess I had too much else going on to have room for caring about some scars,” he half-shrugged.

“Okay,” Ty said softly, but kept his hand where it was on Alex’s shoulder.

Ty moved in closer until his forehead was against Alex’s cheek. Something was nagging at the back of his mind. He was pretty sure it was in his head, that he’d been reading Alex right the whole time and it had all been genuine. But Alex had had moments before where he’d gotten caught up in old notions of what sex was supposed to be like, and today had been enough of a deviation from what they’d done before that Ty just wanted to know this wasn’t one of those times.

Ty found Alex’s hand and threaded their fingers together. “Was that okay for you?”

Alex nodded with a suppressed smile. “Yeah. It was nice. Really good.”

“Okay. I just wanted to be sure– that you weren’t just saying all that stuff about it feeling good. Because you can tell me if it doesn’t.”

“Nah, I meant all of it.” Alex turned his full gaze on Ty and untangled their hands to brush his knuckles along the edge of Ty’s jaw. It sent a shiver through him followed by a warm, blooming sensation he didn’t have a name for.

“I thought so. You seemed more… confident today,” he said, gathering himself back to their conversation.

“Mm, yeah,” Alex replied, thoughtful. “I had this thought – well, maybe it’s weird – but it popped into my head how I got used to having to tell the nurses and aides what I needed when I was in the hospital and rehab. And it wasn’t weird, it was just… practical. Like, no reason to get hung up on asking them for something, it just needed to happen.

“And you always want to know what I want and I’m never sure, but then I thought – wait, I know how to pay attention to what my body is saying and ask for someone to do something for me, I just have to think about sex like that. That’s not, like, completely weird to say is it?”

“No, that makes sense. I’m glad. I mean, I’m glad you thought of a way to figure out what you want and say it, but, like… it was also hot, not gonna lie. I like being able to do the things you want.”

Alex looked a little sheepish but nodded. “It was kind of hot. I don’t know if it’s fully… sunk into my brain yet that I can… ask for stuff, but I guess it wasn’t too bad for the first time.”

Ty snorted. “Yeah, not too bad.”

They spent some more time in each other’s arms recovering, and then Ty walked Alex back home again. Ty took the long route back, down Willow Lane, and detoured through the forest for no reason in particular. His elated contentment buoyed his enjoyment of just being outdoors a little longer, brightening even the harsh shadows of pine trees against snow in the evening light.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Are we allowed to describe that time of day as ‘twilight’ yet or is that just unspeakable forever?
> 
> (And sorry to get a tad kinky on main, it just came out that way... 🌝)
> 
> Anyway, this chapter’s about crip time. Here's a short article if u wanna know more: https://bit.ly/2X3Fumf (tried to link it but I couldn't get it to post properly, sorry I'm old).
> 
> Also, apparently in, like, 2012 someone designed one-hand-open condom packages specifically for people with hemiplegia, but, like… you can’t buy them anywhere… So, I’m declaring that in Ferngill Republic, someone manufactures one-hand-open condoms. (Not shown: Ty and Alex having to ask to borrow Sebastian’s computer and internet access to buy them online).


	34. Man to Man

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Additional Chapter Tags: nausea mention, general downer capitalism feelings, substance use/misuse mention, implied suicidal thoughts, negative experiences with organized religion.

It had been an inescapably cloudy and depressing day, where everything just felt like a fleeting distraction from the general gloom and boredom the day seemed to encourage. The evening was not shaping up to be much better; Ty had suggested they try going outside to change the mood, but now they were just gloomy and bored out in the cold.

This was exactly why Alex hated winter: the nothing-to-do, the cooped-up restlessness that now was just compounded by his previous (Yoba, was it really eight?) months stuck indoors more often than not. It made him antsy at the best of times. But he’d run out of even that two months into winter now.

He and Ty sat at a picnic table that was still a little damp from melted snow and flicked acorns at each other until the crunch of gravel coming down the Mountain Road announced someone’s approach. Sebastian’s dark, hooded shape emerged. He halted when he saw them and diverted from his path to join them.

“Hey,” Sebastian said dully. “What are you all up to?”

“Nothing,” Ty answered glumly.

Sebastian sat down heavily next to him. “Me neither. I was going to go bother Sam just to have something to do, but I think he’s supposed to be watching Vincent anyway.”

Even in the fading light, Alex could see the deep circles under his eyes, and from the strong smell of stale cigarette smoke coming off him, Alex suspected he’d spent the day chain smoking.

“You good, bro?” Alex asked.

“I feel like shit.”

“You look like shit,” said Ty.

“Thanks,” Sebastian said flatly. “My sleep is fucked right now. I can get two hours or sixteen hours and nothing in between. It’s killing me.”

“I haven’t been feeling great either,” Alex said. He hadn’t been having panic attacks much, but ever since he’d gotten the letter about his pension, whenever he got a little stressed or nervous about something, it quickly amplified into full-on anxiety paired with a sickening nausea that took hours to subside.

“Yeah,” Ty added. “This whole week had just sucked. This time of year still reminds me of when it was getting really bad at Joja before I quit.”

The three of them stewed in silence for several minutes until Sebastian suddenly sighed loudly and stood up. “All right, listen up, jerks. I wouldn’t do this for just anyone, okay?”

“Do what?” Ty asked.

“Come on, we’re getting outta here.”

“Where… are we going?” Alex was wary of whatever this was already. Spontaneity was a luxury he didn’t have anymore, and he definitely wasn’t in the mood to get stuck who-knew-where if this plan took them to a place Sebastian hadn’t ever had to consider accessibility for, or involved more energy than Alex had at the end of the day.

“Just come with me.”

“Yeah, I’m gonna need more information than that,” Alex said, a little annoyed he had to ask, “Like, how long is this going to be, should I be bringing my wheelchair, are there paths, are there stairs…?”

“Oh– yeah. Sorry. I was thinking a drive – it’d be a half-hour drive each way.” Sebastian spun his lip piercing between his fingertips, considering. “So, let’s say an hour bare minimum, but after that, whatever you’re up for. Just sitting once we’re there; yes to paths, but it’s outside; no to stairs.”

Alex mentally corrected for what would likely be an additional forty-five minutes or so of getting to Sebastian’s house, then getting himself and his wheelchair into and out of a car on the way there and back. He didn’t completely trust anyone except himself and probably his Grandpa to actually give an accurate report of accessibility, but it sounded doable.

“What kind of car?” None of that mattered, of course, if his wheelchair wasn’t going to fit.

“Pickup truck.”

Alex had only really gotten in and out of a van before, but fitting his wheelchair wouldn’t be a problem at least. A pickup truck might be a bit higher off the ground than a van, but it’d probably be fine.

“Okay, let’s go then. If one of you load my wheelchair into the truck.”

They followed Sebastian to his house, whereupon he instructed them to wait outside while he ran in.

“ _Mom! Can I borrow the truck?_ ” came his shout from inside.

They piled into Robin’s monstrous brown bench-seater pickup truck, which was ancient enough to have wood paneling down its sides. It turned out Alex had no trouble getting in, and he’d gotten to sit and enjoy watching Ty and Sebastian struggle with figuring out how to fold up his wheelchair.

“ _Yoba,_ this is _not_ light,” came Sebastian’s strained voice from around the back of the truck.

“It’s, like, barely thirty-five pounds,” Ty responded, judgement clear in his voice.

“Okay, look, not all of us spend all our time throwing around sacks of flour and chopping wood and lifting cows with our bare hands or whatever else you do.”

Once they’d all piled in, Sebastian had taken too long to choose the music ( _I’m trying to get us pumped up, okay?_ ), so Ty had staged a mutiny and declared himself driver, but then they were on their way on the highway westbound out of Pelican Town.

Sebastian’s music actually did seem to bring up the mood; It wasn’t really Alex’s thing, but the energy was infectious, and he was already feeling more upbeat (even though he was pretty sure at least two of the songs were about killing yourself). Ty and Sebastian sang along enthusiastically to the rapid-fire verses.

“Ty, how the fuck did I never know you were on that emo shit?” Sebastian grinned.

“Hey, you told me I can’t call it emo,” Alex protested.

“Only emo kids can call it emo,” Sebastian said coolly.

Ty laughed. “True, true. Well, I was the only out kid in my middle school, of course I had an emo phase.”

“Oh, you have _got_ to dig up photos of baby-gay emo Ty,” Sebastian cackled.

Sebastian directed Ty off a ramp Alex recognized as the exit for the nature reserve and found himself wishing he had clarified that when he asked if there were paths, he’d meant, like, asphalt. Concrete. The kind he could navigate in his wheelchair. But for now, he decided to suspend his mistrust until they arrived at wherever Sebastian was actually taking them.

Sebastian was no longer tending his playlist as he gave Ty directions through the deserted, sparsely lit roads, and the energetic music shifted into melancholy, dreamy sounds. The mood turned quiet and reflective as they passed the nature reserve’s back gates and wound their way up the mountain on the wide, paved road to the top.

When they finally pulled into a parking spot, Alex waited in the truck for a moment, breath fogging in the air, while Ty and Sebastian brought his wheelchair over. Sebastian was right, though; all the paths Alex could see were paved with asphalt, thank Yoba.

“Come on.” Sebastian beckoned to him and Ty once Alex had gotten into his wheelchair again and led them to a flat rocky overlook just off the path that opened out onto a clear view of Zuzu City.

The three of them sat on the ground propped up against a boulder, Ty in the middle. (Alex was getting pretty smooth at getting from his wheelchair to the ground now if he did say so himself.)

They looked out over the ledge silently side by side. Everything was dark except the sparkling glow of the city lights; Alex could barely see the outlines of the other two as his eyes adjusted.

“I usually don’t bring people here,” Sebastian said, breaking the silence. “I say this out of love, but Sam and Abby are too big of a pair of doofuses when they’re together to appreciate it, so they’ve never been here with me.

“I usually go to this little outcrop of rocks a little way from here that’s really isolated, but it’s pretty rocky getting there, and the view’s the same.” He shrugged. “I don’t know. I just like looking out at the city sometimes.”

Alex had been to the nature reserve plenty of times before for school trips and days out with his family when he was younger, but never at night. Even if the city never held any particular attraction for him, Alex could admit the lights were pretty from a distance. “It is kind of beautiful.”

“Yeah.”

Ty looked to Sebastian. “You ever still think about moving out there?”

Sebastian was quiet for long enough that Alex thought he wasn’t going to respond, but he finally spoke again.

“Nah. I don’t think I’d like _actually_ living in the city. Too many people. I think I just wanted it so bad because it wasn’t Pelican Town. It was the _‘big city_ ,’” he said, with self-contempt, “And that was the only way people got out of crappy little towns.” 

“It’s funny, Zuzu City was the opposite for me. I tried getting transferred to the Zuzu City branch almost since I started working for Joja so I’d get to be closer to my Grandfather. And, no offense, but Zuzu City’s so much smaller, so I hoped it might not be as… fast paced? Or soul crushing? But I was never able to swing it.”

“What was it like working there? I can’t even picture you in an office.” It was another part of Ty’s past that he’d seemed to feel was sufficiently summed up by ‘it sucked,’ but now Alex was curious.

“At Joja? It was…” Ty laughed coldly, “Really awful. I mean, data entry just sucks wherever you are, and, yeah, the pay was crap – although they didn’t limit overtime – but the depressing stuff wasn’t even the worst part. It was like, they always did things they’d say were for ‘morale’, but it actually just made everything worse. Like bringing muffins to staff meeting, or raffles you had to pay into, or cheesy artificial team building games – can we please just get decent pay and benefits ?

“And they would do this thing where they would ‘recognize our hard work’ by announcing who had the most productivity each month. But it was always the same two people who did, like, _impossible_ amounts of work, so it was the opposite of motivating. I know for a fact the one guy was on large quantities of amphetamines and the other one never spoke to anyone; never saw her in the break room. And I’m pretty sure she slept in the office at least some of the time because I never saw her come in or leave. And they were congratulated in front of everyone like that’s what we should try to be like.” Ty leaned forward and hugged his knees. “And on top of it, it was just a constant stream of work that would pile up and pile up, and they’d always be sending you reports of how far you were from meeting your quota.”

“That’s stressing me out just hearing about it,” Sebastian said .

“Yeah. I got this promotion to the corporate data team at one point and it was just a higher workload and more pressure because the managers made you feel like everything was fucking life or death. I used to have nightmares almost every night. I still get them sometimes.”

Alex moved his hand to the ground next to Ty’s far hip. He had the urge to hold onto Ty and never let him go; to shield him from bad things ever happening to him again.

“I don’t think I’ve ever actually heard you say that much about working at Joja,” Sebastian said.

“Don’t really like talking about it. Or thinking about it. Yoba, now I’m anxious as fuck,” Ty said, trying to laugh it off, but his voice strained with not-quite-suppressed emotion.

“It’s over now,” Alex said softly, “You don’t ever have to go back there.”

Ty nodded and took a steadying breath .

Alex looped his arm around Ty’s waist and Ty reached across himself, Alex’s flash assumption being that it was to push his hand away. But Ty threaded his shaky fingers through Alex’s and pulled Alex’s arm tighter around himself. Alex squeezed Ty in closer against his side. It made his chest ache to see Ty hurting.

“What about you, Alex? You still want to get out?” Sebastian said, clearly sensing Ty needed a break from being the focus of their attention.

“I didn’t want to leave,” Alex answered honestly. “I never got why people hate Pelican Town so much.”

“Nothing ever happens. There’s no opportunities. Half the town’s either alcoholic or on their way there. It’s only a matter of time before it finally gives up and dies. And nobody even cares anymore.” Sebastian said apathetically. “I always thought when you used to talk about joining the Tunnelers all the time it was to get out of there.”

“Oh. No.” Alex had heard all the arguments before, but he just didn’t see it. “That part of going pro would have been one of the sacrifices, on top of being away from my grandparents. I know people are always talking about how they want to get out, but I don’t know. Never really thought that way I guess. I mean, the beaches for one – summers here are the best. And, yeah, there’s not a lot to do in winter, but we have Winter Star, and all these other traditions they don’t have anywhere else. It’s quiet and peaceful. You can almost forget there’s even a war.

“And people actually take care of each other. I don’t want to know where my grandparents and I would be if we lived in the city, where no one knows who their neighbor is. I’m pretty sure it’s solely Mayor Lewis feeling sorry for us that they haven’t shut off our power yet.”

Sebastian sighed. “Yeah. You’ve got a point. That’s… actually the reason I’ve started admitting to myself that Pelican Town probably suits me more than the city does. I’d lose myself in a place like that. People in cities don’t have a pathological need to be in your business at all times like in this fucking town, but I guess I need that in a way. I need people around who… anchor me to the real world. I mean, I probably wouldn’t see daylight if Sam and Abby didn’t constantly harass me to hang out with them. Normal people would probably say that means they care.”

Ty snorted. “Um, _yeah_. It means they care.”

Sebastian huffed out a laugh. “Yeah, I know, I know; I’m just being an asshole.”

“And like you can talk anyway, you do the exact same thing to me,” Alex pointed out.

“Pff, whatever.”

“Yeah, you care about people, too,” Ty teased.

“Shh– hey. No I don’t. I’m a loner. I don’t need anybody,” Sebastian said, though Alex could hear the smile in his voice.

“Too bad, we’re here anyway,” Ty said.

“Ugh, you’re the worst,” Sebastian laughed. “All right. I’m probably just trying to make myself feel better about not making it out, but… maybe Pelican Town could be worse.”

“And, you do have to admit, the past few years it’s changed a lot. I know what you mean about people kind of giving up, but it’s not even actually like that anymore, is it?” Alex said. “I think there was some sort of tipping point when Ty finished fixing up the old community center. People have really started caring about the town again and taking pride in it. And think about how many more families and young people there are living here than like, ten or fifteen years ago.”

“Yeah, that’s true. I forget how much Ty coming here really brought things back,” Sebastian mused.

“Me? I think that’s a bit of an overstatement.”

“Are you kidding?” Alex asked, incredulous.

“Yeah, shut the fuck up, Ty.”

“Yoba, I have no idea what I’m doing, though.”

“Dunno, seems like you know _something_ ,” said Sebastian.

“I guess I meant… I don’t really have a vision or purpose or anything.”

This surprised Alex. He had always admired how Ty just seemed to have an idea, then execute it. He just _did_ things. And got other people to do things they wanted to do but thought they couldn’t. Alex had seen Haley finally branch out and start advertising her photography services at Ty’s encouragement, and Sebastian had said before he didn’t think their band would have ever gotten past Sam’s bedroom before Ty’s genuine interest in Sam’s music had gotten him to believe anyone else would want to hear it. There was Leah and her art show. The list went on. And Ty was more than just a hype man: the guy had single-handedly rebuilt the entire yobaforsaken community center. Alex still wasn’t sure how there was time for him to sleep.

Ty was looking down at his hands. “I have these moments all the time where I’ll be in the middle of doing something, like, putting an egg in the incubator, or chopping wood or something and I’ll suddenly be like ‘wait – I’m running a farm. Who let me run a farm? Everyone’s just gonna let me look after a whole-ass _farm_ out here by myself?’

“I just… do stuff I think will help me keep going for a little longer and keep a roof over my head, but I’m not really doing anything more than that. I didn’t start all this to support the local economy, or be environmentally friendly, or personally victimize Morris or anything, I’m just here because I had the deed and _couldn’t_ be at Joja anymore.”

“Why does it need to be more than that? You make Pelican Town suck less. You like your farm. There you go,” Sebastian said.

“Maybe. I don’t know. I can’t tell if I’m someone who needs to have a bigger purpose or meaning, though. Maybe it’s enough to just feel satisfied right now, but maybe I do need something more. I had all these expectations my whole life – ‘graduate from high school’, ‘go to university’, ‘get a job’, ‘fill these quotas’. But either they nearly killed me, or I failed completely – and they weren’t even my goals in the first place.”

“Yikes, _that’s_ hitting a little close to home,” Sebastian laughed.

“Oh, yeah. Uni dropouts,” Ty smirked, exchanging a fist bump with Sebastian.

“Hey, I flunked out of a couple community college classes,” Alex protested.

Ty offered him a conciliatory fist before settling back with his arm around Alex’s shoulder.

In the dark, listening to their voices beside him reminded Alex of the times his father had made them go confess their sins to Yoba. He’d be wracking his brain, desperate to find something he must be guilty of, with the uncomfortable silence pressing in and forcing out his words. But this silence, among two people he’d learned to genuinely trust (a list that fit on one hand), was different. It was more like an open teammate, ready to accept a pass after a long, demanding rush.

“I get what you mean– about feeling like maybe you need more in your life– goals and stuff,” Alex said. “I mean, you guys and Haley hanging out with me makes it easier to get through the day – I am grateful to you for that. But… I think I am just someone who needs a purpose. Then I look at my life and I can’t see how I’m supposed to get anywhere.

“You guys are lucky. Both of you– you’re smart and you have a _‘thing’_ you’re good at and like doing that you can actually get paid for. You’re probably tired of me saying it, but it’s just stuck in my mind and I keep thinking over and over, what do I _do_ with my life now? Doing what you like sounds nice, but I don’t think I even know what that is anymore. All I had was gridball.” Alex leaned his head back against the rock behind him. “Sometimes I think… what’s even the use?” he said quietly.

Alex had never said anything like that out loud before. He wasn’t even supposed to let himself think about those kinds of darker thoughts. But lately they’d been harder to block out, even with all the good things that were happening. The other two were quiet for a moment and Alex suddenly hoped Ty and Sebastian had interpreted those words differently – like maybe he’d just meant giving up on trying to make something of his life.

But Sebastian finally spoke; “I think that sometimes, too. I guess we’ll just have to stick around and find out.”

Alex swallowed back the lump in his throat and nodded in agreement, knowing Sebastian couldn’t see him but not trusting his voice right now. That was all you really could do, he supposed. He’d been avoiding looking at Ty, not wanting to see his reaction, but Alex finally tore his eyes from the sky above them and met Ty’s gaze, eyes misty with tears he was trying to blink away. Alex quickly looked down again before he could start tearing up, too, and just concentrated on the steadying feeling of Ty hugging Alex in close, head pressed against Ty’s shoulder.

“It’d be so much easier if I just knew whether my pension was going to be approved or if I should be stressing about trying to find a job. And at the same time, part of me worries if I do get my pension approved, I’ll just take it as an excuse to go back to laying inside all day. Or even just stay where I am now.”

“Nothing wrong with that. My family gives me shit all the time about not having any goals or not living up to my potential or whatever, but nobody _has_ to do anything. I like my job. I don’t have to work at a big tech company or get a fancy degree or, like, cure cancer or whatever. Life is meaningless – we don’t have to justify our existence by spending every minute sacrificing ourselves and looking for some deeper meaning. Just do what makes you happy and doesn’t actively hurt anybody, you know?” Alex didn’t have to see Sebastian to visualize the emphatic gestures he knew Sebastian would be making along with this speech.

“I can never tell if the stuff you say is just depressing or actually weirdly comforting,” he said, not entirely convinced.

“Ugh, it usually makes sense, though, doesn’t it?” Ty said.

“It’s just the truth. No use sugar-coating it,” Sebastian replied. “I mean, I know you gotta eat to live and all, but, really, you don’t _have_ to do anything. You don’t have to try to figure it out.”

“It seems like you did figure it out though,” Alex pointed out.

“I don’t know, not really. I guess I have a couple extra years on you of trying to deal with my shit, so maybe it seems like I have. But not any more than just… trying to learn the lesson that all that hopes-and-aspirations shit doesn’t work for me .

“Not that you can compare my situation with yours, but for me, my mental health is just too unpredictable. So I decided to stop beating myself up over figuring out living in the city and getting a degree so I can get a job with some big-name gaming company wasn’t going to work out. I tried it, it sucked, I hated it; I couldn’t make it. What my mental health can take is freelancing out of my mom’s basement, so why spend my time feeling like shit about it?

“That probably sounds like, ‘just be happy and get over it’, doesn’t it?”

“Well, now that you say that…”

“Yeah. I don’t mean it that way. It’s taken me a long time and a shit-ton of therapy to get here\\\ and just be okay with where I am. It was pretty fucking messy sometimes. And there are still times I come up here and look at the city and all I see is a reminder that I’m still living in my mom’s basement a whole fucking decade out of high school,” Sebastian laughed cynically. He let out a dissatisfied sigh. “I don’t know. I don’t know... I don’t really have any answers other than... things take time? But my several-years-ago self gives you permission to punch me in the mouth for saying that.”

Alex laughed. “Maybe when I’m not so tired from just existing I’ll take you up on that.”

“Please do.”

“I think I get it though. I thought letting go of my dream of going pro was all I had to do, but maybe expecting myself to have any kind of life goals is asking too much right now. It’s hard to admit it, but I’m really still just recovering from the accident, physically and mentally.

“Who knows, maybe there’s a point in the future where I could have a job or something, but, like, I barely know what’s going on right now… I take two naps a day. I couldn’t remember the word ‘egg’ earlier. I hate that nothing feels straightforward anymore, but I think I’m seeing that the things I thought were straightforward never existed in the first place. I guess I just have to… well, it sounds bad, but, stop trying.”

“So, we’re back at ‘nothing matters, do whatever’, then?” Ty said, smiling gently.

“Hey, works for me,” Sebastian said.

“Mm… more like, ‘I’m too fucking exhausted, do nothing.’ Maybe ‘do whatever’ later though,” Alex added. Just thinking about the absurdity of it all forced a laugh out of him. “Man, I’m glad we took this trip up here to lighten the mood, huh?”

The others laughed alongside him and they passed into silence for a while before Sebastian spoke up again. “It’s getting kind of late. Want to head back?” he asked.

“Yeah, probably a good idea, it’s getting pretty cold,” Ty said, and Alex nodded.

Ty handed Alex his crutches as they stood up to leave, and Alex took the opportunity to practice standing from the ground.

“Hey, how come people say ‘crutch’ like it’s something bad that’s holding you back?” Alex said as he raised himself to standing, the thought suddenly occurring to him.

“Ableism,” said Sebastian.

“You always say that.”

“You keep pointing out things that are ableist.”

Alex shrugged, but gathered himself, straightening and taking a crutch in each hand before lining himself up and sitting back down in his wheelchair.

Alex was glad Sebastian drove on the way back. He slipped his hand into Ty’s and Ty rested his head on Alex’s shoulder. When Alex heard slow sleepy breathing giving way to a single soft snore, Alex couldn’t help his smile, smug that Ty was the one that fell asleep this time.

“You know, my mom didn’t start woodworking until she was past thirty?” Sebastian said, not taking his eyes off the road.

“Really?”

“Mm-hm,” Sebastian nodded.

He didn’t add anything else, but he didn’t really need to.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank u for reading my 70k-word anti-hopes-and-dreams propaganda.
> 
> But really, the ‘pursue your goals no matter what’ cultural narrative can be super damaging and we don’t talk about that enough.
> 
> Um, so, this chapter took me so long to update because I started playing Omori and my save file says I played, uh… 49 hours in the last 2 weeks, so. Yeah, it’s a really good game, definitely check it out on Steam (mind the content warnings though). But I finished one playthrough, so back to concentrating on this story I hope…


	35. Try

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Additional Chapter Tags: Body image issues, implied learning disability, internalized intellectual/learning/cognitive ableism.

Alex awoke to the late morning light peeking through the blinds. Ty had already gotten up, of course – he never seemed to be able to sleep past seven, but Alex took a few minutes to let himself wake up before getting out of bed and running through his morning stretches.

His arms and wrists had built up their strength again and he’d been able to mostly go back to using his crutches like before. He’d noticed, though, that he had to be a lot more careful about using them the way he was supposed to be using them, or his shoulder would become irritated much faster than it used to.

For now, he telescoped his crutches and stuck them in their holder at the back of his wheelchair and emerged from the bedroom to see Ty hovering over the kitchen stove.

He was wearing Alex’s t-shirt. It looked good on him. His broad shoulders and strong farmer’s arms filled it out in ways Alex couldn’t anymore. Alex had a momentary flutter of inadequacy; self-conscious insecurity at the sudden awareness that he was bare-chested himself. But he took a deliberate breath and pushed those thoughts away. Ty didn’t mind. Ty kept telling him he was attracted to him. And Alex didn’t look _that_ bad. Probably.

Ty looked up. “Oh, it’s my handsome boyfriend!” he grinned, oblivious to Alex’s momentary falter. “Good morning!”

“Morning,” Alex yawned.

Something was sizzling in the frying pan while Ty halved a tomato and then gave something in a pot a quick stir.

“I’ve got some mush on the stove, like my Grandma used to make. I was just thinking yesterday how long it had been since I made it and I was craving it so bad when I woke up. And I can fry it up tomorrow.” He set down his wooden spoon and came over and bent down to give Alex a kiss.

“Oh yeah, I remember trying that,” Alex said as Ty returned to the stove. “It was good. That name still gets me, though.”

“You want an egg?”

“Two?”

“Of course.”

Alex pulled up to the kitchen table and watched Ty add the tomatoes and four eggs to the pan and give the pot another stir.

“You’re a shirt thief,” Alex pointed out. “It’s your house, I should be the one stealing shirts.”

“Oh, okay,” Ty said, but he had a mischievous glint in his eyes as he stripped Alex’s shirt off and handed it back to him.

Alex slipped the shirt on. That was enough time practicing getting comfortable with his shirt off for one day.

Ty reached up to the top shelf of a cabinet to grab two glasses (passing the perfectly good cups on the shelf below it), and his back muscles flexed with the movement. He then yawned and stretched dramatically in several different poses, and bent over much lower and longer than necessary to look through the fridge. Alex’s eyes roamed up and down his body as Ty leaned back against the countertop, torso enticingly exposed.

Alex reflected that he now knew the feeling of Ty’s skin beneath his hands; he was learning all those shapes, spaces, curves, expanses of skin. Alex had thought it would be strange or more nerve-wracking, having sex with _a man_ , and it had been admittedly intimidating at first, but it had really only ever felt like having sex with Ty. ~~~~

He was suddenly aware of Ty looking at him expectantly, waiting for the answer to a question Alex had definitely not heard.

“Have I ever told you that you're hot?” Alex said.

Ty laughed. “Thanks. I did ask if you wanted orange juice, though.”

“Yes, please. Pour me a glass?”

Ty set breakfast on the table, and they dug in, falling into quiet, sporadic conversation about nothing in particular.

Across the table, Ty was mixing together the mutilated pieces of what had been fried eggs, a procedure he appallingly called ‘scrambled eggs’, although Alex couldn’t really help looking on with a fondness. It was inexplicable, but it was Ty.

The feeling in his chest at that moment was heavy, but not in the way that that sunk his heart into his stomach. This was like an anchor, holding it in place. It was warm, like the jittery lightness he still often felt around Ty, but it was steady and grounding. Alex had felt it before, but he hadn’t really named it until last night.

They’d been laying together, his head on Ty’s chest, Ty brushing his fingers along the bristles of Alex’s hair while Alex drifted off to the sound of Ty whispering something in his ear. He had just processed that Ty had asked if he was still awake when Alex just made out Ty’s whisper, even softer than before: _“I love you”_. Alex had stayed still and quiet, knowing Ty had wanted him to be asleep when he’d said it, and just let the words blanket him and lull him back to sleep. There would be another time for Alex to say it, too.

When they were done, Ty did the dishes while Alex showered (getting a shower bench for Ty’s house had been an excellent decision). He was sitting on Ty’s bed, finishing up getting dressed when Ty came back to the bedroom.

“You wanna hang here or do you have to go back?” Ty asked.

“Hang here.”

He raised himself up with one of his crutches, and motioned Ty over. Ty reached out and pulled him closer until they stood nose-to-nose, slower now than he did at the start of their relationship, Alex noticed, to give Alex’s slow body time to adjust its balance. Ty brushed his nose against Alex’s.

“Ty?”

“Yeah?”

“If I put my arms up, like, around your shoulders, could you hold on to me, in case I lose balance?”

“Like this?” Ty replied, tightening his arms around Alex’s waist so they were flush against each other. He had blissed-out smile plastered across his face.

“M-hm,” Alex nodded, distracted and hazy with how close he was to Ty and those wide, dark eyes.

“I can take this.” Ty removed one of his hands from Alex’s waist, and Alex passed him a crutch, which Ty leaned against the wall as Alex moved that arm up and over Ty’s shoulder, then they did the same on the other side.

Alex held Ty like that with his arms resting on his shoulders, Ty’s strong arms holding Alex securely against him. Alex smiled and closed his eyes, and rested his head against Ty’s, forehead to forehead, nose to nose, enjoying being here as long as his body would let him. The few times he started to list to one side or wobbled in place, Ty’s arms remained unmoving. Alex had always liked the protective feeling of being bigger and stronger than the person he was dating, but Ty’s secure hold on him was comforting somehow in a way that was just as gratifying. Alex let his chin rest on his arm, while Ty rested his head on Alex’s shoulder.

He didn’t know why he’d had such a strong craving to do this, but he was too happy that it was working to be annoyed that it had taken all that effort. Alex had kind of hoped his balance would be better by this point since regaining more core stability, but the physical therapists had started suspecting it was more of a long-term, even permanent brain problem than just a muscle strength problem, and it was looking more and more like they were right. Oh well. Nothing he wasn’t pretty much used to at this point anyway.

“Okay, I think I need to sit down now.” Alex finally said, and Ty passed him back his crutches one hand at a time.

“That was nice,” Alex said as they piled onto the couch together.

Ty nodded, his smile warm. “We should do it again sometime.” He gestured toward the side table. “Can you pass me that notepad? And that pen that’s with it?”

Alex did, and watched as Ty started writing out a to-do list of all the things he had to get done around the farm before the weather started warming up again. Alex slid a book off the top of the stack on the side table, more for something to do with his hands than anything, but he started paging through anyway. If he was supposed to be trying not to put any pressure on himself to figure out what he was doing with his life, maybe he should start taking up a hobby, like reading or something. Why not, he supposed, now that he was here, with a book in his hands.

“You gonna read?”

“Oh. Um, yeah. I keep saying I want to read more. Maybe I should just do it.”

“Cool.”

Ty went back to his list and Alex turned his attention to the book.

The words were small and cramped on the page, and the letters, as miniscule as they were, were thick and dense. It was like they were purposely trying to make it difficult. His eyes kept sliding over the shapes and down the lines and up and across and back along the page, like he was skating across slick ice, unable to catch on anything to hang on to.

Alex took a breath and slowed down his mind and turned back to the beginning of the book.

Okay. One word at a time. He moved his thumb to the first words on the page, larger than the ones below it.

 _Chapter._ Great, got that one.

_One._

_Chapter one._ _Nailed it_ , he thought sarcastically, and swept his thumb down to the line of smaller text.

Alex knew what almost all the words meant, but it felt like by the time he got to the end of a line, he’d forgotten what he’d read at the beginning of it. And his eyes didn’t like to stay in place unless he kept a finger where he was supposed to be reading like he was a little kid just learning to read picture books or something.

Reading hadn’t exactly been his strong suit before having a stroke, but he didn’t think it had been quite this hard. It always felt like treading water for too long, but now it was more like treading in molasses. And this was a lot harder than reading the mail to his Grandma, where the letters were clearer and there weren’t as many words so close together.

Maybe this just wasn’t the book for him. He wasn’t ever really much of an imaginative, storybook type of person, and this one’s cover had a dragon on it. Maybe he could get his brain to work better with a different book.

But the stack of books on the table and the two large bookshelves on the wall behind it loomed intimidatingly before him. How did people even start reading? Which books did you pick? How did you keep your eyes on the page?

He felt the heat of embarrassment on his face as he put the book back on the table. He crossed his arms and slunk down further into the couch, wishing he could take back saying he was going to try to read. This was one of those times he wished he could forget himself in the rhythm of countless reps and burning muscle.

“My brain’s too dumb to read now, Ty.”

Ty set down his notepad and looked patiently back at Alex.

He sighed and grudgingly rephrased. “Okay – I don’t think my brain can read anymore.”

“Don’t you read the mail to your grandparents?”

“I can read short things. Not very well. And I have to keep reading it over again to get what it’s saying. I think books are just… too much.”

“That’s okay, you don’t have to read books. But also, that book is really hard,” Ty said, peering past Alex to get a look at the book he’d been reading. “It’s, like, notorious with fantasy nerds – everyone makes jokes about how they can’t get through it.”

“Did you get through it?”

“Ha – _yes,_ as a matter of fact, I did,” Ty beamed proudly, before catching himself and backtracking. “Um – but I’m an abnormal freak even among nerds, and it took me like the entirety of high school and some of middle school, so, yeah. That doesn’t mean anything that I read it.”

“You read it in middle school?”

“I mean – I started, but I didn’t really understand it. I just wanted to look smart and I had way too much time on my hands because I only had, like, one friend. But there are a lot better books to start off with.”

“I should probably just accept I can’t read anything other than, like, a kid’s book now,” Alex frowned. “I couldn’t even get myself to read things I was really interested in before I had a stroke. I probably tried to read that volume of _Pro Gridball_ I have ten times before I just gave up. Being so obsessed with working out and gridball for so long probably did something to my brain, and now it’s even worse.”

“What about an audiobook?”

“That’s cheating. You’re not even reading anything!” Alex scoffed.

“I guess so.” Ty paused for a moment, considering. “Well, why do you want to read?”

“What do you mean?”

“Like, what makes you want to try reading books? What part of it are you looking forward to?”

“Um, I don’t know,” Alex shrugged, suddenly self-conscious. “Finding out what makes smart people like reading? Just, like, seeing what’s up with books. And– you like to read. I haven’t really tried too many, though. I guess people just assumed I wouldn’t be interested, and, like, gridball was my thing, so it didn’t matter if I wasn’t great at reading. But. Yeah. I just want to… see what’s out there and if there’s books that would make me like reading.”

“Okay,” Ty said evenly, though his eyes were soft in that way Alex knew meant he was doing the thing where he was trying to be all casual, despite something Alex said having made him sad. Which happened a lot lately. “So, when you want to read a book, you want to find out what the book is about.”

“I guess.”

“Well, an audiobook does the same thing, doesn’t it? If you wanted to read to get faster at reading or something, then an audiobook wouldn’t help, but it does the same as a written book if you only want the information in the book or just to enjoy it.”

Alex frowned.

He had never been someone to take the easy way out. And it felt that that’s what he’d be doing if he just gave in just like that with reading. The best things in life were things you earned. If it was that easy, what would be the point?

Although. Was it really that different from, like… using any of the other things that helped him get through the day? Just last week he’d been the one to point out the way people talked about crutches was messed up.

“Oh. It’s like crutches… but for books,” he said, not really intending to have said it aloud.

Ty smiled. “Yeah, that’s a good way of thinking about it.”

“I don’t even know how to get one of those, though.”

“Hm, maybe they have them at the mus– Oh, wait,” Ty’s face suddenly lit up. “What if I read to you?”

“I don’t know… I’m not great at paying attention. I’ll feel bad if I fall asleep.”

“We don’t have to do it or anything, but it also doesn’t really matter if you hear every single word. It could just be for fun. But no pressure.”

“Okay. Maybe.”

By the time he got home, though, Alex strangely found himself wanting to take Ty up on it.

And when Ty did eventually come over that evening after having made enough progress on his to-do list, Alex talked himself into it.

Alex had deferred to Ty’s suggestion that they read _Pro Gridball Season 44_ , since the thought of trying to come up with anything else to start off with was way too overwhelming.

It was funny how some of it was outdated now, and he liked pointing out to Ty how things had changed, and any speculations had come true or had proven to be completely false, and how players’ careers had developed.

Even though he did space out a few times, Ty was cool about backing up and reassuring him it was okay. It was a little exciting to realize he knew what was in the book now, and completely novel to come away from time spent with a book that hadn’t ended in anxiety and embarrassment and dread.

When Ty said goodnight and headed back to the farm, Alex found himself left with a cautious hopefulness that maybe this could be something good.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In-game Alex has dyslexia and/or ADHD and you can pry that from my cold, dead hands. Sam is also my ADHD son.
> 
> (We're so close!)


	36. Snap

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Additional chapter tags: ableism, drinking alcohol briefly mentioned

Alex and Ty sat side by side on the dock watching the sky turn from pink to pale blue and the early morning stars slowly disappear.

Neither of them had made it to midnight last night, and Alex’s grandparents hadn’t either, but the four of them had had a nice time that evening lighting sparklers and eating hot pot at Alex’s house before all crashing by ten. Ty and Alex had woken each other up in the early hours just before sunrise tossing and turning, cramped up on Alex’s narrow mattress, so they’d given up trying to sleep and headed for the beach.

“Are you making any resolutions for this year?” Ty asked.

“I don’t know. I hadn’t really thought about it. Are you?”

“Well, I always have things I want to do on the farm,” he pondered aloud, “And I never run out of things I have to work on with myself… Not sure where I’d even start.”

They lapsed into silence again.

Ty thought back to where they’d been this time last year. He and Alex and Haley and Emily had sat by the river and had a little too much of the wine Ty had brought from the first batch he’d ever made and tipsily collapsed in a giggling heap onto Emily’s queen bed well after midnight. All four of them had woken up there the next morning in a tangle. (Ty had never asked if Alex remembered waking up with an arm thrown across Ty ‘s back, his head resting on Ty’s shoulder blade. Ty, of course, hadn’t been able to forget feeling the weight of Alex’s body against his for weeks afterward.)

It seemed like a more innocent time, Ty thought, looking now towards his boyfriend. The softly pink-tinted morning light cast deep blue shadows among the angles of his face.

Well, maybe things back then were more complicated, though, in their own way.

“How about– no resolutions?” Alex spoke suddenly.

“Like, our resolution is to not make any resolutions?”

“Yeah. We’re both trying to be better all the time. But maybe we’re too focused on goals, and we can’t actually appreciate where we are already.” He was looking out into the horizon with a very serious (very endearing) face.

“Yeah, fuck goals. No resolutions,” Ty smiled.

“No resolutions.” Alex was smiling now, too, as looked out on the water and settled against the wooden post at his back.

Ty brought out his fishing rod and started setting up his rig.

“Oh, yeah, I’m hanging out with Leah tomorrow, so I might not have time to stop by.”

“That’s cool. Haley and I were talking about maybe going out to the Grampleton Mall.”

“The mall?” Ty echoed, surprised. The last time Alex had been out of town for anything that wasn’t some sort of medical appointment was the day of his accident. The mall out in Grampleton was a little one-level building that never seemed to be able to keep all its storefronts occupied, but it still seemed like a big step.

“Yeah. I was thinking of buying some pants,” Alex said, his expression thoughtful and distant.

“Oh yeah?”

Alex nodded. “Gonna try to find some joggers. My Grandpa said they’re good because they don’t have buttons, so they’re more comfortable and easier to get on, but still look like pants. And Haley keeps telling me I have to wear something that’s not sweatpants eventually.”

“Do _you_ want to wear something that’s not sweatpants?”

Alex looked at him briefly before returning his gaze to the horizon. “Yeah. I think she’s right. I know it probably sounds like she’s being judgy, but she does know me. I don’t think wearing _only_ sweatpants feels like… what my new ‘normal’ is going to be.” He turned to Ty again, frowning, “That doesn’t count as a resolution, does it?”

“Nah, it can just be buying pants at the mall if you want.”

Alex just leaned into Ty and let his head drop to Ty’s shoulder.

They stayed for another hour or so while Ty fished without any bites and then they headed back up into town.

“I’d normally buy my spring seeds today – wanna have breakfast and then see what Pierre’s got when he opens?”

“Can I choose something for you to grow?”

Ty grinned nodded. It felt strangely intimate, and suddenly it was all Ty wanted.

Once they’d made pancakes for the whole house, they went straight over to Pierre’s.

“Okay, what do you think?” Ty asked Alex, thumbing through the packets of fruit and vegetable seeds. “I usually plant a ton of strawberries and green beans, but maybe I should change it up this year.”

Alex was beside him, looking up at the row of flower seeds on the shelf and selecting packets off the shelves too high to be at his eye level from his wheelchair to get a look at their labels.

“What about flowers?”

“Yeah. Fuck goals and shit, right? Flowers,” Ty said, shelving the strawberry seeds he’d been examining.

They piled packets of seeds for blue jazz, tulips, daffodils, hyacinths, and hellebores onto Alex’s lap.

“If we plant these in the next week or so, we’ll get to see them bloom in the summer,” Alex pointed to a packet of pansy seeds, “And we could do lavender. They might not do as well being planted in the spring if it gets too rainy, but, if it goes all right, they also bloom in the summer.”

Ty was impressed. “I didn’t know you knew so much about flowers!”

“I don’t,” he shrugged, “Just picked up a few things from my Grandma. _She_ knows everything about flowers.”

After Ty paid for the bags of bulk flower seed and a steak for Dusty as a treat, they headed for the door.

Jodi, however, waylaid them before they made it there, with the clear intention of striking up a conversation. Ty usually wouldn’t mind, but his head was caught up in a space between possibility and a tunnel-visioned focus on just enjoying every little moment of good the day happened to give them that made small talk seem unpleasantly weighted down with reality.

“Happy new year to you two!” Jodi smiled overly cheerfully.

Alex and Ty returned the greeting. Without leaving a beat for them to make their escape, she continued.

“It’s been quite the year, hasn’t it? Bet it’s good to get a fresh start with the new year.”

He and Alex responded with vague, polite noises of agreement.

“Well, you two seemed to have made the most of it, anyway. You know, Alex, you’ve been so strong through all this, the way you’ve made the most of it, and kept going despite such a setback.”

Ty shifted on his feet and shot a glance down at Alex, who was looking as uncomfortable as Ty was starting to feel.

“Oh,” Alex managed to reply. But Jodi was still barreling on.

“In a way, aren’t you kind of grateful for the accident – for bringing you two together?”

“Um, no?” Alex’s eyebrows furrowed in incredulity. He turned sharply and exited straight out the door.

Ty left Jodi with her mouth in an almost comical ‘o’ as he took off to follow Alex.

“Hey, are you okay?” Ty asked, rushing out behind him.

“Yeah. It’s fine. That was too dumb to even get worked up about.”

“Uh, yeah, that was pretty shitty.”

“It’s whatever,” Alex said with a shrug, though he was still scowling.

Alex didn’t pause until he was in front of Dusty’s pen, Ty half-jogging behind him to keep up.

Alex carefully unwrapped the butcher paper parcel and called Dusty over and tossed him the steak. He watched silently, face hard as Dusty enthusiastically tore into it. Ty stood next to Alex for several minutes, waiting for him to speak. As if suddenly becoming aware that Ty was there, Alex’s eyes darted up at Ty. He dropped his gaze back down to Dusty’s pen, his shoulders taking on a disheartened slouch.

“It’s not that I’m not grateful I get to be your boyfriend or anything, but…” Alex trailed off.

“You don’t have to explain, Alex.”

“It’s just, I want to think we could have figured it out without- _everything_ , you know?” Alex was solemn as he watched Dusty, whose tail wagged enthusiastically. “Do you… think we would have?”

“I don’t think that question… means anything, Alex. I mean, we could make up what-ifs forever.” Ty supposed the idea that all the good he and Alex had was always dependent on something catastrophic happening wasn’t a terribly comforting thought, but he’d never put much stock in fate. And Alex wasn’t asking for a philosophical discussion right now, anyway. “I think so, though. Yeah,” Ty said finally. “Everything was there, we just needed a nudge in the right direction, and that could have come from anything. And how it went down didn’t even have anything to do with your accident. It’s not like we… met in a physical therapy office or something. I mean, your grandma already saw something between us last year. I think we just work too well together not to have ended up together eventually. ”

“Yeah, I think so too.” Alex gave him a soft half-smile as he rested his forearm along the ridge of the fence. “Well, that was a dick thing for Jodi to say, but it has kind of been a good year in the end, hasn’t it?”

“In the end, sure, it was pretty all right, I gotta say... But last year, as in the year as a whole? Totally sucked.”

He laughed. “Yoba, it really was kind of terrible, wasn’t it? Yeah. It really, really sucked sometimes.” He laughed again, bordering on a little delirious, and Ty couldn’t help laughing with him. It was hard to even begin to wrap his head around the highs and lows they’d been through in the last year.

Alex turned to Ty again. “Well, I'm looking forward to next year, anyway.”

“I can agree with that.”

“Ok, now, come here,” Alex said, smirking now, and hugged Ty in by the waist.

They stayed with their arms around each other side by side until Dusty came over and slobbered on both their sleeves, and then they retreated indoors to warm up with hot cocoa.

Back inside, Evelyn set mugs in front of them as they sat at the kitchen table, joining George, who remained aloof after a grunted greeting as he paged through the TV guide. ~~~~

Evelyn began bustling around the kitchen, taking ingredients out of the cabinets Ty immediately recognized for what would be the first spring cookies of the year. It was still freezing outside, but Ty appreciated the optimistic spirit of it.

“So, what are you boys planning on getting up to today?” she asked.

Ty and Alex exchanged a conspiratorial look.

Alex grinned. “Nothing!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Absolutely cannot believe there's only one chapter left... 😳😳😳


End file.
